Ever since the launch of the original Xbox, Microsoft has struggled to gain a foothold in Japan, and according to former Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach, there wasn't much the company could have done differently to make a bigger splash in that market.
"It’s just a question of focus," Bach explained on the latest episode of IGN Unfiltered. "And it’s a question of where you have assets and where you don’t have assets. And we had no assets in Japan," he added, noting the company "didn’t have relationships with Japanese game developers" aside from "a few isolated ones" for games like Ninja Gaiden, which "were actually more popular in the West than they were in Japan."
Given the opportunity to go back in time and do things differently with the original Xbox, Bach said he would have done "just enough" to keep Microsoft engaged with what Japanese studios wanted to accomplish in the west, but "probably spent a little less time on it," saying, "it distracted us from things where we actually had an opportunity to make progress."
The former Xbox boss went on to note that "[Xbox] 360 was better, but [original] Xbox was really hard. I always tell people, it’s the only market I’ve even been in where we had negative market share."
For more on the history of Microsoft's gaming platform, including one of the other names the company was considering for Xbox 360, be sure to check out our full interview with Bach on IGN Unfiltered.
Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter and subscribe to him on YouTube.
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