Only a few years have passed since the Xbox Series X first appeared in Japan. In June this year, it was reported by Famitsu that the Xbox Series had sold just shy of 7,000 units during the span of June 13-19, outselling the PlayStation 5. Microsoft also saw a big victory a month prior as it sold over 6,200 Series consoles. Even though a lot more of Sony’s consoles have been sold in Japan overall, Xbox has beaten it twice in weekly sales, which is a small but symbolic victory. The reason for it is due to supply chain issues that continue to hamper Sony.

In a May article published by SupplyChainDive.com, Sony’s Executive Deputy President and Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki told people during an earnings call that the company was going to be lowering its projected number of consoles sold to 18 million due to supply chain issues. “Eighteen million units is what we feel very comfortable that we can get the parts and components, and we feel that there was a little bit higher demand than that. If the question is whether we can meet the demand, I think we’re still short somewhat,” said Totoki. Sony’s current pain is Xbox and Microsoft’s gain.

In February this year, Famitsu – translated by VGC – reported only 2.3 million Xbox line consoles have been sold in Japan over the past 20 years. Xbox 360 sales attribute for 1.6 million of the total number of consoles in the line sold, making it the best-selling Xbox console in the country. A reason for the 360’s early success in Japan was because, unlike the original Xbox, the Xbox 360 was sold prior to the holiday season and one year before Sony could get a single PlayStation 3 onto store shelves. The Xbox One saw the exact opposite of success in the region, as Japan only accounted for 0.3% of its global sales per the market research company IDC. The research company’s data also shows that 8.6% of PlayStation 4 sales came from Japan.

Microsoft Gaming’s Chief Executive Officer and Head of Xbox Phil Spencer – then Executive Vice President of Gaming at Microsoft – said in a 2019 statement to CNBC “Japan remains an important part of our global gaming community and a major contributor to Microsoft’s future plans. We’re committed to bringing innovative and homegrown content from Japan’s leading game creators to a global audience”. A few years later Spencer is staying true to his word, as it was recently announced during the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase that Xbox Game Pass would be home to Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal – the latter of which will be released on October 21.

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Spencer then turned it over to legendary video game developer Hideo Kojima, who announced he was partnering with Microsoft to make an original exclusive game for Xbox Series X and S. “There is a game I always wanted to make… With Microsoft’s cutting edge cloud technology and the change in the industry’s trend, it has now become possible to challenge myself to make this never before seen concept,” said Kojima. Back in the early 2000s during the release of the first Xbox, Japanese developers were skeptical of Microsoft’s ability to make impactful gaming hardware simply because it was only known for its software.

But working with Kojima and alongside other Japanese developers, Microsoft is learning from its past. In the last three years, Spencer and his team over at Xbox have seen a good-sized growth in the number of Japanese players after the launch of Xbox Game Pass. In 2020 during the Tokyo Game Show Showcase, Spencer said “Japan is our fastest growing region worldwide…Since we launched Xbox Game Pass for both console and PC in Japan…we’ve seen more players on Xbox devices, games, and services than in any time in our history in the market.”

Spencer also went on to say that for 90% of Japan-based Game Pass, it was the first time they ever got to play indie games on Xbox. Microsoft’s total sales numbers may be dwarfed by Sony and Nintendo, but there is no doubt they’re taking steps in the right direction when it comes to appealing to the Japanese market. By working alongside Japanese studios and developers, and offering more RPG and JRPG style of games on its platform, Microsoft is making its games more appealing to Japanese players. That’s major progress, as one of the big knocks against the Xbox years ago was that its library consisted mostly of shooters.

Game Pass is a great way for Microsoft to gain more traction in Japan. They’ve already made Japanese titles like Danganropa: Havoc Anniversary Edition, the definitive Dragon Quest 11 S: Echoes of An Elusive Age – which comes with a 2D mode – and the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection available on the service. If you go on their website and click ‘Anime Month’ it gives you the full list. They also have games like Soul Calibur 5, and 2010’s NieR which were developed by Japanese studios – Bandai Namco and Cavia.

It’s hard to gauge whether Xbox will become a major player in Japan, but their quiet recent successes are a testament to a drastically improved strategy that’s now put the dark early days of Xbox One in the rearview mirror.

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