Why Xbox failed in Japan

Bill Gates was preparing to walk out on stage to deliver his much-anticipated keynote at the Tokyo Game Show on Friday 30th March 2001. The Makuhari Exhibition Hall was packed with a 4000-strong audience. Executives from all the major Japanese game publishers were there: Capcom, Square, Tecmo, Sega, Namco, the lot. Press had gathered from all over the world, and they were all there to see one thing: the Xbox.Backstage, Gates turned to Kevin Bachus, at the time Xbox director of third party relations and the man charged with getting all those Japanese executives out there in the audience to make games for Microsoft's new console. “Here, hold this,” Gates said, pulling out his wallet. “I don't like having anything in my pocket when I'm talking.”Suddenly, Bachus was holding the wallet of the richest man in the world. It felt thin, as if only a credit card and a driver's license were inside. “I was terrified to even open it,” he remembers over a decade later. “But of course that's all you need when you're a billionaire right?”Gates' star turn at the Tokyo Game Show was supposed to show the Japanese game industry that Microsoft was serious about getting into the console business. Gates, one of the most famous people in the world, one of the most respected businessmen ever, had taken the time to make sure Japan felt important.But all didn't go according to plan.http://images.eurogamer.net/2012/art.../resize/600x-1Bill Gates on stage with Sega executives announcing its 11 game deal for Xbox at TGS Spring 2001.

Gates spoke eloquently about the importance of the Japanese game industry, of his reverence of Isao Okawa, the former president of Sega who had died two weeks before the show after a battle with cancer. Okawa was a "great man who accomplished many things" Gates said. The Japanese, wearing headsets pumping out frantic translations, listened intently and respectfully, as the Japanese do. But when Gates started talking about the Xbox his keynote turned from insightful industry analysis into a sales pitch.Gates announced Sega would design eleven games for the Xbox, including Panzer Dragoon, Jet Grind Radio Future, Sega GT 2 and Gun Valkyrie. He announced the Xbox controller S, a slightly smaller version of the reviled controller that would come with US and European launch units, with the buttons positioned to best accommodate styles of gameplay popular in Japan. And he announced Microsoft's Xbox Japan division, run by former Sony game development chief Toshiyuki Miyata, set up to make Japanese games for Xbox to appeal to Japanese gamers and to sign Japanese games made by Japanese publishers.Miyata previewed Xbox games with videos and demos - Azurik: Rise of Perathia, Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding, NFL Fever 2002 and Halo, which would all launch in Japan. Konami's Air Force Delta 2 and Tecmo's recently confirmed Dead or Alive 3 were shown to highlight the support from Japanese publishers. Gates spoke of the console's 8GB hard drive, saying, "people still underestimate the difference it will make”."In the Japanese market feedback is naturally different from the United States," Gates said. How right he was.

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