Metroplex System

No, I agree, I think the calculus is a lot murkier in light of recent developments. It's not that Xbox stops benefiting from having people with deep, legitimate Japanese industry connections and credentials like Kato even now. It's important that Microsoft maintains that sort of high-level outreach. Even if most Japanese developers and publishers probably only work with Xbox in a strictly transactional capacity and not because of any deep resonance with Microsoft's stated missions (something which did genuinely happen among a handful of teams in the original Xbox and 360 days), I reckon it's in their interests to keep someone like her around to ensure that those Japanese companies don't feel like they're being taken for granted, that Microsoft does value their presence in their ecosystem and can continue to make it worth their while to publish and sell games on Xbox systems, even if it's hardly ever anyone's best-selling SKU.

But at this stage, moving forward, I do get the feeling that people like Kato are largely going to help Microsoft to dot its i's and cross its t's when it comes to the Japanese industry and maintaining that flow of content onto both consoles and Game Pass. For the most part, barring a handful of major exceptions like FF14 (which is obviously going to be solved sooner rather than later), I think the current status quo is largely as good as Microsoft is going to get when it comes to Japanese support. There's always more work that can be done, more developers that they can try to bring into the fold. But the deeper they go past the juggernauts like Sega, Capcom, and Bandai Namco, the more trouble I think they're going to have winning over smaller developers that haven't been won over already. Game Pass deals, as we now know, are not all beneficial to all developers. Those smaller devs that primarily focus on Sony, Nintendo, and maybe Steam probably risk serious sales cannibalization for any day-and-date launches and I have a feeling that longer Micorosoft is in its current position, the less inclined it is to cut them the sorts of deals that would assuage their fears. For Japanese devs that don't already have an established presence on Xbox specifically by now, even decently-sized ones that sell a couple hundred thousand or even sometimes a million copies for their games, I struggle to see how many of them would particularly benefit from making the jump now when their audience is already concentrated on the other platforms and awareness of them among Xbox's core demographics is, at best, low, if not outright nonexistent.

Beyond that, as international of a platform as marketing likes to project the Xbox, I think we can all agree, when it comes to Japanese titles in particular, they're not serving as console or subscriptions drivers, nor has Microsoft even attempted to do such a thing since the early 360 days. Japanese games are by and large functionally a garnish catering to players who largely come to Xbox for western and indie games, but also happen to enjoy a handful of Japanese IP, like, say, Yakuza and Persona. Those games help maintain retention among that audience so that they're less inclined to take their money and spend it either with Sony/Nintendo, or anywhere on Windows beyond their immediate control like Steam, where they obviously don't get a cut. It's Content that fleshes out a portfolio, not a raison d'etre that forms the backbone of its identity as a platform, whatever that even means in 2024.

Basically, I think the role of people like Kato is mostly going to be to ensure that flow of Japanese games remains steady and that Microsoft doesn't make any decisions in terms of publishing logistics or infrastructure that would catastrophically put those games in jeopardy. On a secondary level, I imagine Microsoft is also still very keen on acquiring a Japanese developer or publisher of some sort and those people are also being retained to perform due diligence on that end. But for a myriad of reasons I've gone into plenty of times elsewhere, I don't expect them to make any moves on that end any time soon and, nowadays especially, virtually anyone worth buying would likely have to be kept multiplatform to make such a transaction worth it to the bean counters on both sides.

Let me also throw in an addendum that really illustrates just how little any Game Pass deals Microsoft makes matter in a domestic context. You can walk right now into a Yodobashi Camera, a Japanese chain of enormous electronic department stores, and if you walk to the Xbox corner tucked away in the back of the games section, you'll find the Persona 3 remake just barely promoted as a Game Pass title here alongside stuff like Minecraft and Forza. And when I say barely promoted, I'm talking, cropped box art on a nondescript sign that hardly attracts attention to itself. You'll almost certainly miss it if you don't stop and actively look around that aisle.

Literal feet away, throughout the main portion of the game section, you will also find the Persona 3 remake being promoted. As a PlayStation game. There are big ceiling banner ads dotting multiple aisles and trailers loudly blaring on monitors. This is the version of that game Atlus and Sega want to sell to a domestic audience. They will begrudgingly allow it to be acknowledged on Microsoft signage as a consequence of contractual obligations designed to bring in extra pocket change overseas. But they absolutely have no intention of promoting it as Xbox game domestically post-launch in stores and I can guarantee you it's because there's no sweetheart deal Microsoft could make that would be better than the 4500 to 6000 yen per copy they're likely making selling things to the series' established audience as usual.

Even when Microsoft pays a Japanese developer to plaster Xbox and Game Pass logos all over pre-release trailers, the loyalty stops as soon as the game gets sold in brick and mortar stores. Both sides see each other as little more than a means to an end and, as I said, there's probably not much else Microsoft can do to improve the status quo, especially in its current mindset. It only stands to lose what it has, which it can and has multiple times since the beginning.