Moore touts new Japanese strategy

Microsoft is looking at a ten-year strategy for success in Japan for its Xbox platform, key Xbox executive Peter Moore has told the official Xbox Japan website, with new strategies for the market set to be announced in six to nine months.

The performance of the Xbox in Japan to date has been disastrous, with weekly sales currently running at only a few hundred units - around a hundredth of the sales of the PS2 or GBA, and as little as a twentieth of the sales of Nintendo's GameCube.

However, Moore is confident that there will be an upswing in the console's fortunes in the region in the long term, fuelled by new initiatives and strategies which will emerge in the coming year, and by further development at the company's in-house Japanese development team.

"We're looking into a long-term strategy towards Japan," he said in the interview, portions of which have been translated by US website GameSpot, "so while our current situation may not be ideal, we're planning to change that. In six to nine months from now, we'll be announcing specific strategies that we'll be focusing on to start off with."

"The video chat and the Xbox Live Arcade that we've announced during the [E3] briefing are some of the examples of these strategies. We're looking towards a long-term strategy of 10 or so years, rather than being concerned about the short span, like this week or the week after."

Microsoft's internal Japanese development studio is currently working on action title Phantom Dust, which was well-received at the Tokyo Game Show last year but has since almost entirely dropped off the radar, and failed to show up at E3 this month - as did another of Microsoft's hopes for the Japanese market, Level 5's much delayed massively multiplayer title True Fantasy Live Online.