This is like saying the US in general should ignore the Chinese market - HAH. To do so is futile. As long as you try to enter the market you can't be wrong - if you flat out fail, oh well, at least you tried. But ignoring an obvious 1/4-1/3 of the market is ridiculous from a business standpoint. Look at what Nintendo and Sony have done in Japan - any business person would want to have an influence on Japan still, regardless of profit.

 First of all, American "Gamers" as a stereotype is a significantly different appeal than "Japanese gamers" in the world market - unfortunately for Microsoft, their wolrd-domination tactic in terms fo software doesn't work on the world....  Japan seems to be immune to the Microsoft-influence in terms of games.  Japan seems to love the Wii/DS and the beefed up PS3 idea.  MS has yet to be a world-wide proven success...   Chokehold on western developers?  Umm, not really.  I mean, Nintendo and EA are the biggest influences of any company out there, most notibly Nintendo.

If anything, Microsoft needs to invest in games that really do stand out as games, not media productions, and they might get more world-wide respect.  It's pretty clear that Nintendo, and even PS, even through hard times, have bigger names as "Games" in the real world than Microsoft has - MS and PS are dead even in rates, nothing impressive. 

Your entirely wrong, facher.

Microsoft doesn't have a "world domination" tactic when it comes to software production - their tactic is vastly more Sony-esque, of enticing 3rd parties, than doing it themselves.

Because of that, Microsoft cannot garner Japanese sales without Japanese games. MS has had an easy time garnering huge sales in the West (atleast comparatively to other startups).

Facher - go check what systems Western developers have published on in the past 3 years, and what systems they're on the next few years. Just about every single one of them are either X360 via multi-plat, or X360 exclusive. Nintendo is Eastern, and a 1rd party.

Go look at Valve, EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Bethsada, Atari, Midway, Rockstar, and such. How many Playstation 3 exclusives have been announced from any semi-major Western developer?

And mind you, I'm reffering to 3rd party devs, not 1st party developers, facher.

@ mrstickball:

Rockstar is doing LA Noire
Ubisoft is doing Haze
Naughty Dog did Uncharted
Insomniac did R&C and Resistance
Media Molecule is doing LittleBigPlanet

But those are just a few games that I really had to think about. It's true--if you're a western developer, you're most likely making games for the 360.

Naughty Dog is owned by Sony.
Insomniac has only made Playstation games since it's creation (1994)

As for Media Molecule, it's yet to be seen, since LBP is their first game.

So that's atleast 40% of those PS3 exclusives that are owned by Sony, or only have made games for the PS. Only LA Noire and Ubisoft would be the 2 companies that have 1 game that are exclusive.

MS is not trying to take over Japan, but they need to have a good footing there. Not just for the brand, but for having a broad span of devs. People that say MS should be out of Japan, just really doesn't like Xbox. So is that really the best thing MS should do? I think not.

Microsoft has to offer the 360 in Japan, even if it isn't going to gain any real footing. It would be bad for their image if they didn't offer it there and would also damage their reputation with Japanese developers. Even with Japanese style games though, it won't succeed there. The Japanese much prefer to purchase devices from domestic companies. The iPod is about the only thing that I've seen buck that trend and it still took a few years for it to pass Sony's players in sales there.

that's not my case...still i don't believe that letting PS3 gain ground in EU is a wise move from MS: if you ask me if i can't afford the expenses to adequately promote my products in 3 markets at the same time, i'd rather concentrate efforts on markets that i have at least a chance to win...that doesn't mean that i don't like xbox!

In other words i don't really know what's going on in the rest of EU, but here in Italy i haven't seen a single ad from MS for its x360 since GoW launch! is this a wise move? for the launch of Halo and Halo 2 we were literally flooded with ads! and for Halo 3? NOTHING! in the mean time both "big N" and sony are promoting their products with quite big advertising campaigns...for example before christmas i've seen a lot of commercials for Uncharted...i've even seen some commercials for Assassin Creed..."available on PS3" they said...no mention to x360! who's CEO of MS Italy? Mickey Mouse? i bet that apart from hardcore gamers almost no one really knew that AC was also available on x360 and probably very few potential buyers are even aware of Mass Effect existance! tell me what you want about the importance of Japanese market but to me spending a lot of money in the wrong directiont is just like knowingly tryin' to lose a war you had the chance to win ....and what for? ah 500k consoles sold in Japan in 2 full years?

It's called : looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong-term strategy.