Xbox sees significant growth in Asia

Xbox is growing in Asia, and could continue to get bigger as Microsoft lays key partnerships with Japanese and Asian game studios.

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Microsoft's gaming presence is apparently doing quite well in Asia, especially in Japan, where Xbox has made a bigger splash in the region than ever before. Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer gave a quick update at Tokyo Game Show 2024, where he said:

"We're continuing to see growth in the region. This year, more people are playing with Xbox, across all devices in Asia, than ever before. We've seen the largest number of Xbox console players in the region to date."

"We have a terrific lineup of games from our creative teams at Activision, Bethesda, Blizzard, and Xbox Game Studios coming to Xbox consoles, PC, and Game Pass before the end of the year."

Read Also: Xbox consoles reach 2.3 million lifetime sales in Japan

This expansion is the result of years of hard work in overseas markets, where Xbox has traditionally been quite soft. Any growth is good news for Xbox, though. Final Fantasy XIV director Yoshi-P expressed the current realities of Xbox, saying that Xbox consoles have an "extremely low userbase In Japan."

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But Microsoft wants to change that, it sounds like their plans are working. One of the first steps was to hire Mena Kato, a former Sony exec, to act as a liaison for the region.

Kato had interesting words on why Asian devs and publishers should consider Xbox: "We face a challenge and that means there are still a lot of things we can and should change. Japanese publishers will definitely need us in expanding their business. It would be difficult to do that just with the PlayStation."

In 2023, Phil Spencer also said that Xbox Game Pass PC subscribers in Japan had quadrupled at the time.

This has already led to major breakthroughs with companies like Square Enix, who have pledged to bring more games over to Xbox following years-long exclusivity agreements with PlayStation. FFXIV just crossed over to Xbox, and the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster collection is also crossing over too. More games are expected to follow.

Another step to expanding Xbox in Asia is to bring more first-party games to the region with full localization; during TGS '24, Spencer confirmed that both Starfield's Shattered Space expansion and Indiana Jones would have full Japanese localization.

Then there's Activision-Blizzard games on Game Pass; Microsoft will launch two of the most popular games in South Korea onto PC Game Pass with the introduction of StarCraft Remastered and StarCraft II in November.