Microsoft's Tokyo Game Show Showing

Microsoft's Tokyo Game Show press conference had quite a few choice revelations, above and beyond 1080p for the 360. Several 360 titles are now platinum with games like Kameo, Project Gotham Racing, and Perfect Dark Zero becoming available for about $30 in October. For those with Xbox Live, the first bring it home content is now available from TGS. Demos are expected later this week, but so far all we have to show for the event are some picture packs. The hopeful Xbox presentation, located as it is in Tokyo, has prompted some consideration of the 360's future in Japan. Despite the upbeat tone, the general consensus seems to be Microsoft has already lost the Japanese market, before the other systems are even on the market.

Oh I thougt MS had a Game Show

[CrazyJim1]

I was psyched to see what sort of wacked Japanese Game Show that Microsoft could make up.

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[gEvil (beta)]

I hear the chair toss is a big hit.

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[hc5duke]

As is pie-throwing

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[Ucklak]

For 3 seconds (not a second) I seriously thought the same thing.
I envisioned some sort of popup bonanza and the host dressed as MS Bob.

The summary forgot a few important announcments

[Keeper]

HD-DVD drive goes on sale for 19800 yen (~$170)
Blue Dragon goes on sale before Christmas
Blue Dragon 360 bundle hits stores the day Blue Dragon ships

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[Keeper]

Blue Dragon a niche game? Really? You might as well call FF one of those RPGs nobody cares about...

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[hansamurai]

If anyone is confused about Blue Dragon, it was developed by the game studio Hironobu Sakaguchi created after he left Square-Enix. Sakaguchi was the creator of the Final Fantasy series.

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[minus_273]

looking at the creators, it is a FF game in all but name. even uematsu did the music.

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[atomicstrawberry]

It's not just Sakaguchi either. Nobuo Uematsu on the music, and the character art by Akira Toriyama. You've basically got a combination of the people behind the two largest RPG franchises in Japan - Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. If it doesn't make a splash, then I'd be extremely surprised.

1up Link Not Working

[neonprimetime]

So here's a recap [gamesarefun.com] of the press conference from Games Are Fun

XBox in Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, with how poorly they have performed I don't see Microsoft as having any chance of becoming a majory player in the Japaneese gaming market. With that said, with how poorly Sony is approaching this generation I think Microsoft has a real opportunity to make some inroads into Japan.

With Sony only launching with 100,000 units in Japan (and the likely supply problems that will occur in the following months), and the massive price tag, Microsoft has to get the message out that the XBox 360 produces grap

if only... (was Re:XBox in Japan)

[MoFoQ]

now if only Microsoft can develop an emulator or something to allow the Xbox 360 to run PSx (PS1, PS2, and perhaps PS3) games....maybe they might cause an upset in the Japanese market.

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[gEvil (beta)]

They almost did have a PS1 emu. Connectix, the company that MS bought VirtualPC from, used to make a PS1 emulator for Mac and Windows. However, Sony bought it from Connectix after failing to win a lawsuit over it.

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[MoFoQ]

I remember that...and Bleem.

Actually, I might have the original CD somewhere.....

Re:XBox in Japan

[badasscat]

Honestly, with how poorly they have performed I don't see Microsoft as having any chance of becoming a majory player in the Japaneese gaming market. With that said, with how poorly Sony is approaching this generation I think Microsoft has a real opportunity to make some inroads into Japan.

Keep dreamin'.

If consumers aren't buying the Xbox 360 when the PS3 isn't even on the market, what makes you think they will suddenly *start* buying the 360 once the PS3 is available? (Not even mentioning the Wii... which is still a wildcard IMO.) It doesn't really matter that there are going to be shortages and the prices will be high. Japan isn't exactly a third-world country living in poverty, for one thing - those who want a PS3 will find ways to afford one. They're also going to be inundated with PS3 marketing telling them how cool the system is (and unlike MS's marketing, it'll actually seem that way coming from a company that understands Japanese culture).

Once the PS3 launches, I would expect 360 sales to drop to near zero. They're already basically there, but the 1,500 or so people who are buying 360's each week are going to have even less incentive once the PS3 ships. Some of those potential customers will no doubt also buy a Wii instead; we just don't know how many. But the PS3 is the 800 lb. gorilla in Japan. (My bet is it eventually will be here too, fanboy arguments notwithstanding.)

The 360 is dead in Japan. Thinking otherwise is just denial. It's pretty much *been* dead for a while now, but this is about the point an ER doctor would give up CPR and resuscitation efforts and finally call it. The Japanese public just has no interest. It's not that they hate the Xbox 360, it's just that they don't know or care. It's not even in their consciousness, nor do they want it to be.

One minor correction to the original post here - the Tokyo Game Show is not in Tokyo, despite its name. It's in Makuhari, a city of 800,000 people located about 15 miles outside of Tokyo. It's a small point, but it's kinda like saying Giants Stadium is in New York. It's not; it's not even in the same *state* as New York. The Tokyo Game Show takes place in the Makuhari Messe, which is, as its name does imply, in Makuhari in Chiba prefecture.

Correction to my correction

[badasscat]

Ok, I read the post wrong. The *presentation* was in Tokyo. But TGS isn't.

That actually makes it all the more puzzling, though - that MS would have a media briefing in a completely different city than the game show itself. All of the media are right now camped out in Makuhari, filling up the hotel city that exists to serve the convention center. MS just made them all truck back into Tokyo for their media briefing? That just seems dumb.

What A Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

The last thing 360 developers need right now is Microsoft running their mouths off about 1080p support for games. The 360 graphics hardware simply is not powerful enough to handle games at that resolution. The 360 really isn't even able to handle 720p very well with huge numbers of 360 games plagued by screen tearing, jaggies, lack of affine filtering, and poor framerates.

The 360 is essentially at 480p console. A 4xAA 480p framebuffer fits perfectly in the 10megs of EDRAM. Anything larger than 480p on the 3

I Always Wanted To Pretend To Be An Architect

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what Microsoft is thinking with this 1080p announcement. The best analogy for it would be a manager deciding on their own to enter their middleweight boxer in a heavyweight fight. In this case the manager is Microsoft and the boxer is the 360 developers out there.

Turning on the ability to output a 1080p signal doesn't change the underlying 360 hardware in any way. Reminiscent of the way the bungled backwards compatibly where if they had just stuck to their guns and just kept repeating that they

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[KDR_11k]

What, you mean MS should handle 1080p like Nintendo did online with the Gamecube? Great idea, I can already see the gamers suddently agreeing that 1080p is nothing they want.

How about realizing that people want features not to use them but to feel correct in their purchase? Really, noone uses 1080p because they don't have the TVs for that but that doesn't stop them from feeling shafted if MS announces 1080p is unnecessary and noone wants it while the competition touts it as a feature (even though we have no

Microsoft needs to lend out Xbox 360s

[ConfusedSelfHating]

Microsoft needs to take 100,000 Premium Xbox 360 systems and lend each of them out for a week in Japan free of charge. Repeat 12 times. They could make a deal with the Japanese video stores to lend them out and after the 12 weeks they could take ownership of them. I know that there isn't video game rental in Japan, but it could be to Microsoft's advantage if they tried it. If each of the consoles had 8 games with it, it should give a diversity of play. It would be a test drive. The Japanese are very familiar with Nintendo and Sony consoles, but are not familiar at all with Microsoft consoles. People could borrow it and play around with, try Xbox Live Gold online play. It would create product awareness. Most people are reluctant to shell out a few hundred dollars before they try something. Total cost for Microsoft, about a hundred million dollars. But, it would almost certainly be worth more than that in free press coverage.

In the event that no one wants to even try out the Xbox 360, Microsoft has to abandon Japan as a console market. If you can't give away your product, how can you sell it?

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[womby]

I know that there isn't video game rental in Japan

Sorry What [tsutaya.co.jp]?

Something most people are forgetting..

[kinglink]

Microsoft hasn't really launched in japan. There's systems, but look what japanese games we have for our systems, there's nothing ground breaking. Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey are both going to be major games for what ever system they are for. Expect a sale of a million consoles just based on that. Japan hasn't even gotten Dead Rising yet. Americans have gotten many games at launch yet the japanese had really only one major launch title in their mind (ridge racer).

Basically once the Japanese sees JRPGs wi

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[shimpei]

The cumulative sale of 360 in Japan is well under 200,000 units. Your esimate would require an average Japanese retailer to purchase an inventory of over five times as many 360s as they've sold all year, based solely on the unprovable belief that these two games will be mega-hits. What makes you think Microsoft has that kind of credibility left with retailers after their performance this year, not to mention the three years before that with the first Xbox?

It may be true that the race hasn't begun yet, but