Microsoft remains committed to Xbox in Japan

Things may be tough for Xbox 360 in Japan, but after over five years of trying to crack the territory Microsoft has said that it has absolutely no intention of backing out of the region.

And it’s the country’s rich development heritage that seems to be the root cause of the company’s determination.

Of course we’re not pulling out. Japan remains important to us,” Microsoft’s European boss Chris Lewis told Eurogamer.

We’re very committed to that market. The development community there is very important. Tokyo Game Show will be a notable element in the year as usual.”

Lewis, of course, did admit that Japan is challenging for the firm at the moment, particularly at a time as the entire games market faces the most hostile environment seen in the territory for a generation.

It’s a challenging market. We are up against very strong competition there,” he added. All of our competition is strong. We’re very respectful of what Sony and Nintendo do and where they’ve come from and what they bring.

Nintendo, particularly with the Wii, have opened up a market opportunity there. We’ve leapfrogged that handheld technology with Kinect. What we’re seeing is users love using their own body without worrying about how to work a controller. So we see ourselves as, frankly, a company that does bring an awful lot of firsts, and we’ve enjoyed fabulous success with Kinect.”