Even though Xbox has been trying to grow in Japan for years, things still don’t seem to be working well, and the console is still struggling to find its place there.
A recent example shows this clearly. While replying to a fan on X (formerly Twitter), y-koichi, a developer on Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin at Edelweiss, explained why the game is not on Xbox. He said (via machine translation) his team is small and doesn’t have enough resources to work on a platform with such a small presence. He also pointed out that Xbox is not “even stocked in major retail stores” in Japan, which makes it hard to spend time and money on it, even though he personally likes the console.
Xbox has been facing challenges in Japan for quite some time now, with a very small market share compared to Nintendo and PlayStation. Xbox consoles are also not widely sold in Japanese stores, which makes it hard for many players to find or buy them. Because of this limited availability, the number of users stays low, and as a result, developers are less interested in bringing their games to the platform.
For smaller studios, this becomes a simple decision. Making a version of a game for Xbox takes time and money, and with such a small audience, it’s just not worth it. Most developers choose platforms like Nintendo Switch or PlayStation instead, where they can reach more players, even though Microsoft has tried to improve things by bringing more Japanese games like Final Fantasy to Xbox. However, if the consoles are still hard to find in stores, it raises a bigger question about how effective this strategy really is.
In related news, Japanese studios supported Xbox as a rival to PlayStation, but fear of Sony’s reaction kept them from showing it openly.
