Phil Spencer Touts Xbox’s Japan Growth, Improving Relationships With Japanese Developers

Today’s Xbox Game Showcase was a real celebration for fans of several franchises by Japanese studios, with multiple Persona games making an appearance as well as Metaphor Re Fantazio from former Persona creators, and reveals of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Capcom’s new IP, Path of the Goddess. It’s a marked turn from a few years ago, when Xbox seemed desperate for connetions with Japanese developers.

Xbox head Phil Spencer addressed this on Giant Bomb’s Twitch stream, noting that bringing Japanese developers to a US-based platform was “work.” Spencer admitted that Xbox is “not the strongest brand in Japan” and compared it not just to PlayStation and Switch, but also to mobile, which is a massive market in the country.

“Five years ago, you’d ask when you could see an Atlus game on Xbox,” Spencer said. “We got Capcom showing a new IP. I see all that and I can go to Square-Enix and say ‘C’mon,’ and I have to get on a plane again.

“For me it’s all about trust and relationship. They have to look at the global market, the yhave to listen and hear us and what we stand for…but it’s always work for us in Japan specifically because we are the Xbox team. We’re not a platform from Japan. And that’s okay.”

Spencer went on to note some of the reasons Japanese developers might skip Xbox – sometimes they have other business deals, sometimes they can only support two or three platforms with a release, sometimes they want to reduce development risk.

“Every platform you add adds more work to the dev team,” he continued. “And sometimes it’s just a team that does not have a lot of connection to Xbox and they don’t necessarily see it in their local game store when they walk in. That’s why presence on the ground is so important, even if they don’t sell a lot. Because the teams at the base level can know that Xbox is a game platform and it’s something they see in their day to day lives.”

Spencer concluded by affirming that Xbox has made significant progress in Japan over the last five years, but still has a lot to do.

Xbox has had a lot to say today in the wake of its showcase, including comments from Matt Booty, who said that Xbox’s first-party offerings had “turned a corner” and Spencer affirming that console was “critical” to the future of Xbox. You can catch up on everything announced during today’s Xbox Games Showcase right here.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.