Moore "delighted" by FIFA 10 in Japan

By Tom Bramwell Published 4 November, 2009

Shares his thoughts on market difficulties.

Peter Moore has aired his frustration about Western games not doing very well in Japan, and promised to keep pushing EA Sports games there after FIFA 10 did the unthinkable and pierced the top 10.

"One of the frustrations of being an American company attempting to do business in Japan is the insularity of the industry that defends locally-made content and looks down on games from abroad," Moore wrote on his blog this week.

"I appreciate this is a unique culture that has very different tastes in entertainment. But while western movies and music can be extremely popular with younger consumers, foreign-developed games have an extremely difficult time breaking through with Japanese gamers. This has frustrated American and European publishers for decades."

Not least Mr Moore, of course, who experienced the phenomenon in his roles as presidents of SEGA of America and head of Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360 businesses between 2003 and 2007.

"In the past, we've pointed to things like genre preferences, gameplay mechanics and character art as issues in breaking through in this culture," he continued. "But with simulation sports games, these issues would seem much less relevant - it's typically about the gameplay." As such, he wrote, he was delighted to see FIFA 10 picking up high scores in the Japanese press and delighted again by its chart placement.

"Having said all of that, it is clear we still have work to do in Japan to more fully understand what drives that gamers attraction to sports titles. Let me be clear on this. I recognise that there are many factors that contribute to a gamer's decision to purchase (or not) a particular game, I'd just hate for the gamers in Japan to not get as much enjoyment as the rest of the world out of the best sports game of this console generation.

"Also, we'll continue to do our part to try to better understand the Japanese consumer - with market research, focus groups with gamers of all ages, and feedback sessions with journalists - and continue to improve on the best soccer game in the world."

The latter is a tactic that EA shares with its main football game competition, Konami, and it's not just Japanese journalists with whom the duo speak. Konami publicly sought input from press at an event in France ahead of PES 2010's launch in late October, while EA has contacted European journalists (including Eurogamer) for direct feedback on FIFA 10 in recent weeks.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (13) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Redeye #1 2 years ago

    Fair play to any western-developed title that manages to crack into Japan's virtually impenetrable market.

  • Shadders #2 2 years ago

    Where did PES place in the charts?

  • manuel_garcia #3 2 years ago

    Top marks to them, it's a game worthy of global recognition.

  • Lee_Morris #4 2 years ago

    cragtek, fooball is massive in Japan. Winning eleven is constantly one of the best selling games of the year. Come on Japan buy the superior game.

  • jambo74 #5 2 years ago

    @Shadders

    Who cares!

  • dpb135 #6 2 years ago

    So EA contacted EG on feedback, reckon you can ask them to have a PES memorial option for FIFA so all my mates know are stats against each other and after an exhibition, to have an option to go to team select screen & not all the way to the front, damn annoying when playing winner stays on with a group of mates :)

  • Shadders #7 2 years ago

    @Jambo74

    Because if PES is number one then FIFA breaking in to the top 10 isn't that great, if PES (a homegrown sports game) was 29 then FIFA getting to number 10 is a big deal. It's all about perspective.

    Moore talks about how it's difficult for a western dev to break into the jap charts, so by means of comparison, the position of their home grown competitor is quite significant.

  • TripSkyway #8 2 years ago

    If they put the j-league licence in it might do better, but I think Konami has the rights. I really want a next gen j league licences game. I'd prefer FIFA but Winning Eleven would do fine.

  • swissorc #9 2 years ago

    Maybe what american's don't seem to comprehend is that not every nation is dominated by shallow corporate whore's and that some culture's don't have that high opinion of America and associated brands. Whereas the French (and us British to a less extent) will gladly bash america and willingly believe all american's to be extremely right wing, gun loving, ignorant and arragent. They arel quite happy to forget these opinions convieniantly when the latest shiny thing comes to their shores from the US. However, some culture's are more willing to stick by their morals and opinions and refuse to invest in something that is associated with the very thing they condem. For example, the Daily Mail is an awful right wing nazi house wife pap and even though they give away some good dvd's for free on sunday's sometimes that's no reason to go and buy it. Hope this makes sense it did in my head. p.s. please don't think this was meant to insult anyone/country except maybe the welsh (joke!) it is just a reasoning that maybe american executives have no considered as a possibility for lack luster sale in the land of the rising sun.
    Edited by 1 at 04/11/09 @ 13:43

  • Turrican #10 2 years ago

    I don't think Moore should be trumpeting the success of Fifa 10 when a huge swathe of the community is mad with EA for releasing it full of bugs and only squashing some, running away to work on Fifa World Cup and Fifa 11 without actually saying so...

    An anger that is only marginally less seething for all the games reviewers (this site included) who have failed to address the problems either in the initial reviews or in subsequent interview opportunities. I would suggest that the Japanese reviewers have fallen prey to this ailment too.

  • nuanimal #11 2 years ago

    Hmmm... I would've tried to market it differently if usual methods of advertising and marketing weren't working.

    Maybe something along the lines of renaming it "Super Team Fighting Soccer Tournament Extreme Edition 10: Re-Genesis Saga". And of course launch an obligatory 6-part feature length anime series along side it, a DS RPG, and possibley generate as many blocky figurines as possible - although Wayne Rooney's block-like figurine would actually have quite a resemblance.

    \runs away from virtual EG football mob & Japanophiles

  • jimmyhill11 #12 2 years ago

    Fifa 10 is probably the most overrated game this gen. I'm open minded and definately do not have any sort of allegiance to PES, which seems to have lost the plot this gen. But I have tried to give Fifa 10 a good go and it just isn't that good, and certainly not any better than PES 10. Crossing and Heading are rubbish. The animations for when players recieve the ball to fee are rubbish. its not an awful game, but not as good as reviews made me think
    Edited by 1 at 04/11/09 @ 15:51

  • davisorle #13 2 years ago

    Well when I read the first sentence of the article about Moore exprssing his frustration, the same thing came to my mindd. He knows very well since in Japan theycouldnt sell Xboxes either. Last time i opened that subject about saying that Japan's marketshare is just way too different and has nothing to do with me specially and then the prefferances of most europeans and even more americans', some deerholes were calling me a racist.. lmao dumbasses. My Japanesse buddy was reading the posts when I showed her and had nothign better to do than laugh with it ofc :)

    Anyhow, Moore has been doing great, at least according to what ive read through articles so far. Its all good and Fifa keeps on catching up and stepping further than PES the past few years and im glad about it :)