I believe a lot of studios do not want to be under one umbrella which dictates that they only server one platform. The good thing is that MS does look at everything else besides Sony (maybe some Nintendo) but the other players do not restrict any platform so they can offer way better benefits as Ryu stated. At the end of the day, the real gold mine probably not Japan but other regions that are coming into their own.

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What an absolute garbage deal, that would have been enough to fund two AAA exclusives in that era. Thank God that management is gone.

The problem is that Microsoft has a bad reputation when it comes to dealing with Japanese developers. Not sure if it's some cultural thing but Microsoft just doesn't know how to work with them for some reason it seems. And this negative reputation is something that will make Japanese devs to think twice before agreeing to work with MS. Tencent/Netease at the same time, don't have this problem, so I can see a lot of devs choosing them over Microsoft simply because of them not having a bad history with Japan yet.

It doesn't make any sense if we look at how things turned out. But this deal was most likely done at the point when Microsoft was still delusional about the real state of the market. The expectation has probably been that they would be able to keep up with PS4 in the first years or even be ahead at this point. You remember their plan to sell 200m Xbox Ones. So, if Xbox One indeed has been selling a way better, than it did, this deal probably could have made a bigger impact than it did. The problem is that in reality Xbox One has been selling so badly that even having a couple exclusive games was still not enough for people to choose it over PS4.

If the hardware sold well in japan, even with a spotty relationship, I doubt Japanese devs would skip it like they do. It was mainly last gen when they really sold piss poor in Japan, did they struggle with getting devs on board.  I think considering the sales, MS has done a pretty good job about getting most of the AAA Japanese IP's and a good chunk of the small stuff as well going into this gen, and I'm sure selling them on the Xcloud aspect of it, helps. 

I do not remember any dev stating MS having bad relations or anything of the sort in Japan.  If anything, the Xbox brand does not sell for very obvious reasons in Japan so support would always be limited.  First mobile, Nintendo then Sony and if there are any resources still left for a port then MS might come into play.  Supporting a platform does not come cheap for any developer and the cost and the amount of sells just might not add up for a lot of Japanese developers especially if their games do not sell alot in western markets.  I agree that XCloud is where MS is looking to push into Japan and for Japanese support.  Getting on those mobile devices will open up MS a lot more than trying to sell consoles in Japan when they have to fight against Nintendo and Sony.

That armor looks awesome what the... 

What game is it being added to in MCC? 

Damn I have never seen a VGC article get that many comments, I guess some people are upset that Elder Scrollls is exclusive? Like what do they expect after the Starfield confirmation.

Xbox with a different messaging this year, last year they only mentioned updates on certain games they listed.

Also had the whole ''no next gen news'', ended up not being exactly true because they announced a few next gen ports tho

Fast forward 1 year and we have xbox promising stuff, I doubt it's anything major, but should be more than last year. I'm guessing xbox doing a lot better this generations (over in japan) made them more likely to announce stuff at this particular event.

Scalebound fiasco will still follow Microsoft for quite some time. Luckily, the Xbox management improved by a lot in the last few years, so hopefully it helps to normalise relations with Japanese devs. Platinum is still salty though and I find it hard to see it changing in the near future.