Who says money can’t buy everything?
Yeah, like the $100 million investment in Square’s bomb of a movie didn’t “buy” Sony anything. ;)
Regardless of the reason, it’s good news for the next Xbox’s chances of success in Japan.
I hope this isnt doom for his DS game :/
Mistwalker is not like a normal production studio from what I understand. They come up with the ideas and plot out the game and turn over the technical design to someone else. It’s a lot like the way Dragon Quest VIII was done by having Level 5 (Dark Cloud 1 and 2) do all the graphics and programming, but based on a design by Yuji Horii if I’m not mistaken.
So basically, Mistwalker can take on a lot of projects at once. That’s why they’re going to do two RPGs for Xbox along with the DS game and whatever else.
–Dave
As long as the real development team can execute the vision, I’m fine with that…
Wow, I have to say, I did not see this one coming.
It’s not surprising when you think about Sakaguchi’s choices regarding where to put his games. Square-Enix are the driving force behind RPGs in Japan and their games are available only on PS2. If Mistwalker had put their stuff on PS2, they would have been competing with that and their success would’ve brought some strong competition from the old company.
By going with Microsoft, they’re taking on no one. Their games will sink or swim based on the want for games of that type on the system. It’s a great situation to be in.
However, that’s provided the Japanese are interested in the next Xbox at all. This should increase interest but there are no guarantees. I think in general the success of Sony’s products is largely based on brand and that’s true for S-E games too. It could be that brand consciousness will cause these games to make no impact at all in their home country.
I guess we’ll find out.
–Dave
I keep thinking it’s nationalism (or as they call it in this country; patriotism :wink:) that’s making many Japanese not choose the Xbox. What kind of duties do they levy on game consoles anyway? I know foreign cars have a rough time there, because they’re heavily penalized.
The first Xbox really is “too big”. That was a major issue in Japan where people live in far smaller accomodations than the enormous homes we have here in the US. So the size thing wasn’t just a joke there, it was a serious consideration.
The game lineup simply doesn’t appeal to Japanese players either. I’m sure Kitsune could add a lot more detail to that, but it’s just fact. First person action games are not popular there. Military games aren’t either. The game that drove Xbox success here (Halo) was a non-event over there. On the other hand, PS2 is loaded with all the stuff that Japanese gamers are interested in and it played DVD movies out of the box while Xbox requires additional purchase.
Microsoft just didn’t understand that market at all and completely blew it with the first system. It remains to be seen if even Mistwalker’s games can help reverse that.
–Dave
The game lineup simply doesn’t appeal to Japanese players either.
This is definitely true. I don’t think most Americans truly appreciate how different Japanese gaming tastes are in comparison to our own.
The first Xbox really is “too big”. That was a major issue in Japan where people live in far smaller accomodations than the enormous homes we have here in the US. So the size thing wasn’t just a joke there, it was a serious consideration.
Many people have slammed Microsoft for the size factor, especially when considering the Japanese marketplace. I’ve seen many articles lashing out at MS for not doing their homework. My own opinion is that MS knew the size would be a huge issue, but realized the cost of shrinking the box size wouldn’t be absorbed by sufficient increased sales.
Lack of Japanese game development made the Xbox an “also-ran” in Japan. I think the main reason for this lack of enthusiasm on the developer side was because they didn’t believe MS would be around for more than one generation, and they certainly didn’t anticipate MS gobbling up market share. Thus, it wasn’t a good idea to work with a temporary and untested non-Japanese competitor to Sony.
Now that the Xbox is a serious contender in the global marketplace, I think we shall see an increasing number of Japanese developers working with MS.
Well, there was Crystal Chronicles, and they do plenty of Gameboy games, too.