Ugh, 343 broke the UI for challenges with this update. My challenges on the multiplayer menu are no longer updating after each match. I am getting the XP from the ones I can see, but they aren't being removed from the list and therefore I can't see what my next active challenges are.

Edit: OK, closing and restarting the client after each match clears the challenge list and shows your next set of challenges. That will work as a temporary but annoying workaround to the issue until the next patch.

Today is potentially the biggest restock since launch for both Series X and PS5 going by multiple retailers getting stock and taking over 1.5 hours to sell out of the consoles instead of the usually 5-10 minutes and massive queues either that or everyone decided they don't want to buy a console this week.

These snipers gotta be the worst part of Infinite's campaign. They're so annoying. I feel like I have 10 lasers on me during some of these missions.

I realize that, and that is exactly why Xbox needs to be doing more. They can't afford to be complacent any longer. Xbox Series is showing signs of being able to at least become Xbox's 2nd bestselling console in Japan, ahead of the roughly 500k selling OG Xbox and behind the 1.6m selling Xbox 360. That can't happen though unless Phil does more than he is doing currently in Japan. The crumbs as you call them (an apt description) aren't good enough, he needs to open up the fat Microsoft wallet and at least hat big day one Gamepass JP games and ports for some of the JP series that are currently skipping Xbox, if he is not willing to fund actual JP 1st and 2nd party exclusives or hat JP 3rd party exclusives for Xbox. As it stands, Xbox Series will sell less than OG Xbox, which won't be enough to start to turn things around in Japan. They can carve out a space for themselves in Japan, but it will take multiple generations of effort, with each console selling a bit more than the last in Japan, as more and more JP developers choose to support it over time. 

This is where you are not being realistic, its not about a question of doing more, the market just isn't there.  The market probably never will be there because there are 2 very strong native products that gets everything and there is no reason for those developers to actually care about the meager sales of the MS products.  Even then, what sales in Japan is more mobile than consoles and if we look on the console side, its Nintendo then everything else.  MS tried the whole buying exclusives and buying support and it barely got them anything.  The thing is, if a Japanese customer want a system that is going to play Japanese games, there is absolutely no reason to ever look at the MS systems. MS games in general do not cater to the Japanese market so its less likely that any of their first party games will do any real penetration.

You keep saying Phil and company needs to do more but you have no clue what they are actually doing.  You do not know how many deals they are making or what's in the process or how tough it is to get commitment from studios that see the Xbox as nothing more than some niche piece of hardware.  Having no information on the challenge that MS must go through to get just the crumbs they get today shows just how uninterested Japanese developers are towards the MS products.

The thing is, you want immediate results but that's not going to happen.  Its probably going to take more than a few years of solid selling to make these developers even consider porting their games and even still MS may never get beyond being a niche piece of hardware in Japan.

The only real way I see MS really getting a foothold is Gamepass but not the way you think.  Its not about keeping Japanese games on the platform its about increasing the reach of the service into Japanese homes.  If MS can get more of a mobile foothold then they have a chance to penetrate the market because mobile rules in Japan.

You know MS in the top 10 publishers in Japan right? With Minecraft they have one of the top 5 biggest game franchise.  If they want it happens, they just don't want it. They already stated in 2008 they want to have Japanese games, so why did they not open their own studios in those regions?