Microsoft's Xbox business is booming thanks to services like Game Pass, but one market it's still trying to succeed in is Japan. After apparently "losing trust" with Japanese studios during the Xbox One era, earlier this year it appointed the former Sony executive Mena Sato Kato as the new director for Japan partnerships.
Kato's job is to apparently reverse the situation in Japan, and now in a new report from Bloomberg, she's declared Japanese publishers "need" Xbox if they want to expand their business, and can't just do it with PlayStation alone. Here's exactly what she had to say:
“Japanese publishers will definitely need us in expanding their business. It would be difficult to do that just with the PlayStation.”
Kato is working with Xbox President Sarah Bond and Japanese game studios on a day-to-day basis to help improve relations. However, she admits negotiations won't necessarily happen overnight and expects it to be a long road ahead:
"We face a challenge and that means there are still a lot of things we can and should change.”
One area where Xbox has huge scalability potential is tied to Microsoft's Windows PC market, with Japanese companies like Capcom already experiencing improved profits from this platform in markets outside of Japan.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has also worked hard this year to improve relations with Japanese video game companies going forward. This includes Square Enix, with Final Fantasy 14 Online finally coming to Xbox platforms in Spring 2024. And more recently, Hideo Kojima shared a first look at his new Xbox project.