Phil Spencer hints at future Japanese Xbox One/Scorpio video games

Brad Stephenson

Final Fantasy XV on Xbox One

Microsoft’s Phil Spencer recently took a trip to Japan to meet with a number of Japanese third-party game developers in an attempt to encourage the production of more Japanese video games for the Xbox ecosystem.

While he hasn’t revealed the complete details regarding who exactly he met with, how many developers he saw, and what new Japanese video games fans can expect to come to the Xbox One, Spencer did reply to a follower on Twitter and mentioned that overall the Japanese developers showed a lot of interest in the Xbox One and the upcoming Project Scorpio. He also said that he got to preview “a lot” of new games and stated that his trip to Japan was “great”.

The Xbox One (as well as the original Xbox and Xbox 360) have struggled to take off in Japan where gamers prefer consoles designed by Sony and Nintendo. Part of the reason for the lack of support for the Xbox One has been the absence of hit Japanese franchises. This has changed in recent years with some series such as Final Fantasy making their way to Microsoft’s console but there’s still plenty of catching up to do. Something that could greatly help the situation is the growing emphasis of Xbox-branded video games on Windows 10 PCs, hardware that is incredibly popular in Japan for both business and pleasure. With more games launching on both Windows 10 and Xbox One via the Xbox Play Anywhere initiative, the Xbox ecosystem could potentially become much more enticing for Japanese developers to make games for.

What do you think? Do you predict a greater Xbox presence in Japan and visa-versa? What do you think would bring more Japanese devs to Xbox One? Let us know in the comments below.