Maybe this time it's doing quite a little effort, but after committing the opposite mistake in the past, MS is learning to make efforts commensurate to the results it can reasonably expect in Japan. The next step could be making efforts commensurate to the MAXIMUM results it can reasonably expect, but for that it'll need to watch how the first steps work, first. OTOH we can expect both MS and Sony to make bigger efforts in China, as its population is so large that even a niche market would be huge, just imagine if the same share XB360 has in Japan were achieved on China population, it would be more than 15 million lifetime.

It would be a waste because there would be little reward.

What could MS possibly hope to accomplish in Japan? 1 or maybe 2 million units sold?

Instead spend that money on the west and try to achieve 80 million units sold again. Its not like the 360 needed Japan to achieve that.

X1 would probably still flop there with good launch games.

I have Zumba Fitness World Party. Don´t ask me why...

I was so desesperate for games when the X1 launched that I bought all they had, including Battlefield 4 and this =/

If its a good console, brand preferences are irrelevant. 

Even 2 Million is substantial because its a lot more important to be an international brand then an American Brand, the US, which has no brand loyalty, is not a good place to put all of your eggs so to speak.

And 80 Million is extremely optomistic, with the market shrinking as a whole and most of the 360 advatanges lost, not to mention, rebuying of consoles frankly not happening in this gen probably. We're talking 50 million tops, best case scenario WW. And even that is optomistic.

All I'm saying is, if this is a marathon, not a sprint. 

and If they are even bothering to Launch officially in Japan anyway, they might as well go all out.  

Wow, how much did that cost all together?

Microsoft is probably thankful that console gaming is pretty much dead in Japan. Now they just need to keep dominating U.S. and put more effort in Europe.

They aren't dominating in the U.S and will need to put in a huge amount of effort in Europe considering how bad the X1 is selling there.

Spending a fortune to get 2 million units sold in Japan is not substantial. It seems like an even bigger waste when you consider that market is moving away from consoles (home or portable).

Many of us would prefer that money instead go into getting western game that have more hardware moving potential.

I know 80 million is optimistic (I expected you to say that) and it ain't gonna happen from wasting resources on Japan (that was my planned response).

MS invested in big budget Japanese games for 360 and had little to show for it. No need to do that again.

They are dominating the US. Just because they aren't selling as well in the U.S. as the PS4 (fastest selling console ever) doesn't mean it isn't dominating. Microsoft probably know they can't beat playstation in sales unless Sony screws up because playstation brand name is just too huge to compete with. If they can do better in Europe they can at least stay close in terms of sales with the Playstation. Microsoft may be getting third party support right now, but if ps4 sales get way out of hand sony can tell third party developers don't make games on the xbox one or you can't release the game on the ps4. Trust me, they can force third party developers to skip another platform real easily.