I know everyone thinks bad of MS in this way, but it's all Microsoft needs to win Japan:
Cash.
It's very simple. If MS wants Japan, they can have it. It's just a matter of time, and willingness to sink the required funding into the project.
If Microsoft sank 1 billion dollars into Japanese developers such as Capcom, Namco, Square-Enix, and bought a few smaller studios like Nippon Ichi, kept Mistwaker, and a few other studios, it'd just be a matter of time.
Despite people saying it, Japanese like the X360, and aren't xenophobic when it comes to American SYSTEMS. Now, games are a different story, but if a game plays the same on one system as another, but is cheaper (X360 vs. PS3), they will buy the cheaper - simple economics.
So if MS just spammed Japan with quality titles, it'd have what it wants.
Blue Dragon already proved it. It was a 2nd tier RPG that Mistwaker/Microsoft made, and wound up selling 200,000+ software units, and was responsible for 100,000 hardware units.
Likewise, Microsoft has had a great track record in Japan (only time anyone will say it) with having games that move hardware such as the DOA series, and Ninja Gaiden. The main issue, and only issue MS has, that we've seen and can confirm, is that these top-tier games are so few and far between (as evidenced with the Xbox 1), that with so few games, the bumps don't stay high for too long. However, if you have a decent bit of supporting software (which Xbox never had, but X360 is building), the jumps stay higher and higher. Playstation 3 is proving that too with MNG5 and Bladestorm.
So merely for MS is that it requires time and money. MS has money, and all it now takes is time - it's upto Microsoft to figure out if that's worth it to them or not. Hopefully, it is, because I want more JRPGs!
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
