Microsoft sets sights on Sony’s home turf in console clash

In the battle of the next-generation gaming machines, two key players are moving in different directions.

Microsoft Corp. is making a serious attempt to attract fans in Japan with its new consoles and network services. Meanwhile, Tokyo-based Sony Corp. moved its PlayStation business headquarters to California in 2016 and has built the U.S. into its largest single market.

New Xbox and PlayStation devices launching this week will probably face an uphill battle in Japan, where Nintendo Co.’s Switch enjoys dominance with a family-friendly lineup of games.

But Microsoft’s targeting of the world’s third-largest video-game market — including with services that can be accessed across a variety of devices — could yield strong results. As the Xbox has virtually zero presence in the country, there’s plenty of room for it to increase its share.

“The Xbox has a chance to make Japan its second-largest market after the U.S. if it takes the right steps for years to come,” said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute in Tokyo. “Sony’s attention is drifting away, and fans have started to notice that.”

Sony shares rose as much as 1.2% in Tokyo trading and have gained about 24% this year.

Sony has placed more importance on the U.S. market after the PlayStation 4’s disappointing performance in Japan, according to employees who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.

Global sales of the PS4 rose to more than 113 million from the PS3’s 87 million, according to Sony data. But the console sold fewer than 10 million units in Japan, less than its predecessor, according to Famitsu, a Japanese video-game magazine. The U.S., meanwhile, accounts for 35% of the video-game unit’s revenue, compared with 10% for Japan, according to Macquarie Group Ltd. analyst Damian Thong.

Any suggestion that Sony is shifting its focus away from Japan is incorrect and doesn’t reflect the company’s strategy, spokeswoman Natsumi Atarashi said. She said the PlayStation 5 is launching first in Japan and “Our home market remains of utmost importance.”

A senior figure inside PlayStation headquarters in San Mateo, Calif., said the U.S. side was frustrated by the failure of the Japan marketing team to sell as many PlayStation 4 units as expected. The person asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.

As a result, Japan has been sidelined in planning the PlayStation 5’s promotion, according to several PlayStation staffers in Japan. Employees in Tokyo said they’ve been left awaiting instructions from California.

Japan-based developer support teams have been reduced by as much as a third from their peak, and the rolling contracts of a number of game creators at PlayStation’s Japan Studio, one of the unit’s oldest in-house software ateliers, haven’t been renewed, former employees said. The U.S. office believes the PlayStation business doesn’t need games that do well only in Japan, employees in the California headquarters said.

The PlayStation 5’s two main online promotional events both took place at 5 a.m. in Tokyo — making them more accessible to American and European fans — and lacked Japanese translation for some parts. The company also decided to standardize its PS5 control scheme so that Japanese players would have to use X to confirm and O to cancel, like the rest of the world. That reverses a 26-year tradition in a country where circles signify positives and crosses mark negatives.

Local retailers said they haven’t received many more first-batch PlayStation 5 units than they did of the PlayStation 3, which had a limited initial production run.

“It’s analyst consensus that PlayStation no longer sees the Japan market as important,” Morningstar Research analyst Kazunori Ito said. “If you want to know their take on the Japanese market, you need to ask about it because otherwise Sony wouldn’t talk about it.”

TV ownership among Japanese households has been falling for years, according to government data. That makes the market less attractive, Ace’s Yasuda said. In order to play games on the PlayStation, a user must have a TV or monitor, though some titles are also available to play on PCs.

Serkan Toto, a game consultant in Tokyo, said the PlayStation 5 should sell fewer units than its predecessor.

“Many PlayStation 4 owners in Japan would eventually move to the PlayStation 5, but that would largely depend on how strong the PlayStation team in Tokyo will be in pushing the needs of Japanese customers to the American headquarters,” he said. “Considering the current power balance between the U.S. and Japan, I can’t expect much, unfortunately.”

To be sure, the PlayStation 4’s worldwide success suggests Sony’s strategy hasn’t been detrimental. Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said Oct. 28 that the company would be able to sell more than 7.6 million PlayStation 5 units in the first five months, more than the popular PlayStation 4 achieved in the same time frame. The long-term goal is to sell as many units as the PS4, Totoki said.

And the company’s PlayStation Plus subscription service, for owners of Sony consoles, reported a record increase in subscribers during the period of pandemic lockdowns.

But Microsoft, which is launching its next-generation consoles in Japan on Tuesday, the same day it does so in the rest of the world, sees an opportunity in the country’s market. Microsoft didn’t start selling the Xbox One in Japan until almost a year after the U.S., which contributed to its disappointing sales in the Asian country.

The challenge facing Microsoft is steep. The Xbox One accounted for just 0.1% of console sales in Japan this year through Nov. 1, compared with 10.1% for the PlayStation 4 and 89.8% for Nintendo’s Switch, according to Famitsu.

Microsoft is betting its Xbox Series S, the smallest Xbox ever, will help turn the tide. Previous consoles were criticized as being too large for Japanese living rooms, Ace’s Yasuda said.

The U.S. company has been stepping up discussions with Japanese game developers about releasing titles on the Xbox, said Sarah Bond, who oversees relations with game creators across the Microsoft gaming ecosystem.

Koei Tecmo Games Co. is one of those companies. Hisashi Koinuma, president of the Japanese publisher, said he’s willing to consider releasing more games for the Xbox if Microsoft shows continued interest in Japan.

On top of that, there’s evidence Microsoft is seeking to make acquisitions in the country, though it hasn’t yet landed a deal with a big name there. Several Japanese game developers, from small to big, said it had approached them about buying their businesses. They asked not to be identified, as the talks were private, and declined to give details on how the discussions went.

When asked about potential purchases of Japanese companies, Jeremy Hinton, head of Xbox operations in Asia, said Microsoft is always open to discussions with creators that are a good fit. He said acquisitions are a possibility, but there are no announcements to share at this time.

“Japan has long been an isolated part of the Xbox world, but it appears Microsoft is changing that landscape,” Katsuhiko Hayashi, representative of Famitsu Group, said of Microsoft’s efforts to target the country.

The focus isn’t just on selling consoles. Hinton said the company is also banking on winning subscribers to the Game Pass Ultimate service, which includes the XCloud game-streaming offering. This service, which can be used for other devices as well as the Xbox, offers more than 100 all-you-can-play games for a fixed monthly fee and will seek to entice the country’s growing cohort of mobile gamers.

Although Japan has fallen behind China and the U.S. in the size of its video-game market, Microsoft said Japan is still the biggest when measured by per capita spending.

But questions remain about whether the U.S. company will be able to penetrate it given its lack of success in the past, game-industry consultant Toto said.

“Microsoft will continue to have a hard time in Japan, and I don’t see any reason why the next Xbox should do better in Japan than the previous models,” he said. “All signs point that for the next years, Nintendo will stay king in Japan, and I really don’t understand why Microsoft is still so obsessed with Japan.”

Whether he’s right — or whether the U.S. company can pry open the door to a market that has long eluded it — remains to be seen.

“Microsoft won’t be able to take Sony’s position as No. 2 in Japan anytime soon, but at least it has started to make changes,” Ace’s Yasuda said. “A big tide always starts with a small change.”