They secured the biggest JRPG, Final Fantasy. Nobody talks about the PS3 getting late ports of Star Ocean or Tales of Vesperia. Instead, everybody is talking about Xbox360 getting a simultaneous release of Final Fantasy XIII.
And MS did a good job for a western company in Japan. Japan is very loyal to their own companies. Look at cellphones. Nokia is by far the biggest brand for cellphones in the world. They stopped selling phones in Japan last year, because Japanese people picked Japanese phones. Same for iPod or iPhone. Both unbelievable successful products around the world, but apple is having a hard time in Japan.
Therefore, it is pretty big to sell 1.2 million consoles in Japan against 2 Japanese competitors. A 300% growth compared to last gen is very impressive.
WRPG is in MS hand anyway. Fable is the most successful franchise for WRPG. There is no WRPG with sales as good as Fable.
Imagine not having GamePass on your console...
