Zanten said:
In this case, though, I suspect Square Enix is considering Japan the primary market, with the U.S. and Europe just the icing on the cake. And in the Japanese market, the Xbox brand presence is just ludicrously weak. So as far as Japan goes, at best, the number of gamers left out because they only own a 360 and no PS3 or PS4 would be too tiny to be worth it. And, yes, there is North America and Europe, but generally speaking more insular Japanese developers consider these markets secondary, sometimes not even bothering to release translated copies of games to these regions. And we can only assume that they have sales data on the previous Star Ocean title on Xbox platforms and weren't exactly astounded, which might factor into their decision. So when Sony decided to lock down a bit of exclusivity, I don't think they NEEDED to offer a lot; just some cost-saving development aid, and boom, they've offset the entire Xbox fanbase's profit potential. =P Now, I think that if Microsoft began fork over the funding and personnel to port Japanese titles to their platform (A 'we'll do all the work' deal, basically,) they might be able to counteract this a little bit. I don't think it's a matter of Square Enix not wanting to launch on Xbox Platforms so much as it is deciding that, given the Xbox One's horrible Japanese install base, and even the 360's pretty lackluster one, they just don't consider even the nominal monetary risk of porting a JRPG to that platform to be worth it, especially with Sony offering a better deal. If Microsoft wants to have a comparable library of Japanese content on their console, in all likelihood they're going to have to start paying developers just to be included. =P It's what inevitably starts to happen when you're being beaten THAT badly in the developer's home region. |
Who talked about xbox? this game is japan centric, meaning it shouldn't ignore the wii u. only a more westernized game could think about xbox too.
