Microsoft has made a big deal about the need to grow Xbox's presence in Japan over the past couple of years, and it seems like that's still a major focus for the team right now, as a major job role has just opened up at the company.
The ad, posted on the Microsoft website, is for a "Director of Japan Creator Partnerships", which requires the applicant to "develop strong professional relationships with key executive partners across the Japan gaming ecosystem".
"As the Director of Japan Game Creator Partnerships, you are responsible for leading a team of strategic partner managers located in Japan. This team is chartered to partner with Japan based game publishers and developers to create games for the Xbox ecosystem, including Xbox Game Pass (Console, PC, and Streaming), and empower Creators to grow, engage, and monetize their community of players.
You will empower the Game Creators to focus on their games and communities by introducing them to Microsoft products and services for building and operating their games and their business."
This isn't actually the first time we've seen this job role advertised by Microsoft in 2022, and other roles such as a "Production Partner Manager" have also cropped up for the Japan region over the past few months.
Looking back, we'd probably say Xbox's Tokyo Game Show event this year was one of the best showcases provided by anyone in 2022, and following the event, Xbox's Sarah Bond revealed that over 250 developers in Japan were currently working on Xbox games. In other words, it sounds like there's a bright future ahead!
What are your thoughts on this? Let us know down in the comments below.
[source careers.microsoft.com]
Comments 4
Xbox could really do with creating Japanese games internally, by opening up a specialised studio in the region. This would give them first party exclusive Japanese games for their content portfolio. Their best shot yet was Mistwalker who they financed to create two (incredible, in my opinion) first party titles but then come on, what happened next? They didn’t want to go any further with them?
I do think Xbox needs this as it’s a missing piece of the puzzle. But this refers to partnerships with “creators”. They should start an internal venture.
I guess this is more about convincing Japanese devs why they should stop skipping Xbox.
Well, one can tell why Xbox doesn’t focus on Japanese games just by looking at the comments section here, or the lack thereof.
The void in interaction relating to the Japanese centric gaming sphere on Xbox tells them all they need to know.
Shame really, as they could do well given their spending power if they put their heads together.
But gauging by this site one would assume more people want CoD for next to nothing on a Netflix style subscription.
Phil Spencer has been talking about Xbox's dedication to the Japanese market for years, but with this job just now coming up, it makes me wonder what they've actually been doing all this time.
I wonder if xbox could get late ports: Trials of Mana, Neo TWEWY, Tactics Ogre in the future…..
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