Microsoft RPG dominance fails to take Japan; Now it's Sony's turn

With a Final Fantasy XIII release date of December 17th 2009 now confirmed for Japan, Sony can breathe easy knowing that their system's major JRPG killer app for that region is fast approaching and Microsoft Japan are seeing their days of JRPG domination come to a close.

So far this generation has been interesting for Japanese RPG fans as they've watched franchise after franchise that used to be Sony-based pledge allegiance to Microsoft's Xbox 360.

First we saw Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi take his new company Mistwalker to the Xbox 360, producing Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey which were both marketed as Microsoft's answer to Square Enix's Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy respectively.

Soon after this the RPG kings themselves followed with exclusives in the form of Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean 4, and their one game that was scheduled to launch on PS3 too - The Last Remnant - got quietly cancelled on the PS3, becoming an Xbox exclusive after the fact.

PS3 fans could still breathe easy thanks to them holding the ace in the deck - Final Fantasy XIII. But at E3 2008 Square Enix blew minds by announcing that, too would be heading to the Xbox 360 also, but only in the West.

"We're now in the age of the multi-platform," Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada had said at the time. "In order to offer our product to the vast majority of gamers we need to deal with multiple companies and platforms."

At the start of the generation nobody would've predicted that Microsoft's shooter-friendly console would become the go-to home system for Japanese RPGs, but up until now it has been firmly just that. PS3 exclusive JRPGs have been few and far between made up mostly of niche offerings like Disgaea 3 or mediocre ones like Folklore doing little to stand up against the big-name offerings on the Microsoft console.

Things started to gradually improve for Sony, though - Xbox exclusives like Tales of Vesperia, Enchanted Arms and Eternal Sonata all began to release on the PS3 and one RPG killer app came in the unlikely form of Sega's wonderful Valkyria Chronicles.

For Microsoft, this was all bad news. Every time a big-name exclusive was released the company would see a sales surge - especially for Star Ocean 4 - but weeks later sales would flat-line once more, the company seemingly utterly unable to kick start its Japanese business.

While they were getting the games first, the later PS3 versions were often improved with bug fixesd and new story elements - the PS3 owners were actually getting a better deal, even if they were getting it six to twelve months on.

Fast forwarding a few years from what looked like total Xbox domination of the JRPG genre and here we are in September 2009 looking forward to what will arguably be the biggest RPG launch of the generation - only on PS3 in Japan. The landscape couldn't look more hostile to Microsoft over there.

Sony's PS3 slim had an impressive debut selling 150,000 units, FF13 is right around the corner and one retailer has covered up their Microsoft-funded 360 point of sale with PS3 slim adverts - a fitting metaphor for Microsoft's overall state in Asia.

It's a seemingly impossible turn of events - if you'd have laid out every Microsoft exclusive RPG at the start of the generation plus multiplatform titles, anyone would've bet money on Microsoft's console taking Japan by storm - but somehow, for some reason, all Microsoft's exclusives have failed to inspire Japanese sales to such an extent that the system is even struggling to outperform the original Xbox which was almost entirely devoid of RPG titles.

Microsoft can rest easy knowing that their Western RPG line-up is difficult for Sony to beat with titles like Fable and Mass Effect, but unfortunately this doesn't help their abysmal performance in Asia, a region the Xbox business desperately needs some stake in to combat Sony and Nintendo.

To be fair to both parties, it's true that Sony have struggled to perform in Japan also. Since its release PS3 sales have been frequently eclipsed by the PS2 and PSP and all of Sony's gaming business pales in comparison to that of Nintendo, who managed the coup of gaining exclusivity of the Dragon Quest franchise, releasing Dragon Quest IX for Nintendo DS and securing Dragon Quest X for Wii.

All this seems like it's in the perfect position to change now, with Final Fantasy XIII on the way and a newer, sleeker, cheaper PS3 model on the market - it finally feels like Sony are preparing to make a real grab for the Japanese home console market.

After all the time, effort and money spent securing Microsoft Japanese RPG exclusives, it's starting to look like Microsoft's Xbox 360 may never make the kind of impact in Japan Microsoft intended.

Perhaps it's down to the way it was marketed, or maybe it's because of the lackluster review scores of many of the exclusives. It could even be down to Japanese reluctance to buy into a foreign gaming system.

Whatever the reason, one thing is true: Microsoft have failed to succeed in their plan to dominate Japan via the JRPG genre.

With Microsoft's grab at the Japanese market apparently foiled, will Sony succeed in using heavy hitters like Final Fantasy XIII to combat Nintendo's dominance? Is it possible with Nintendo now the official home of Dragon Quest? Well, that's a question for another day.

Let us know in the comments if you think they'll succeed and why you think Microsoft failed!