Microsoft to acquire Bioware?
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Riddlewire
Regular
If Microsoft is going to make any large purchases, they should definitely look for a 'high value' acquisition. Rare wasn't.
I think they should turn their gaze toward eastern europe (both for the strong value and for the fresh creative blood). Illusion Softworks is an up and comer with great potential. GSC Gameworld would also make an excellent purchase.
I think they should turn their gaze toward eastern europe (both for the strong value and for the fresh creative blood). Illusion Softworks is an up and comer with great potential. GSC Gameworld would also make an excellent purchase.
Actually I think that's a very important argument. Lots of people simply shrug their shoulders at MS failure in japan as in "they've been dead before they started", but fact is that their localization and market adapation efforts have generally been poor at best.Vysez said:
I see lots of this in Korea too, where localizations are either terrible or next to non-existant, the title selection is poor for the target market etc. Yes it's a PC gaming country so you could argue that consoles are dead on arrival too, yet, but Sony as opposed to MS actually spent some effort to turn that around, and even with a slow start they've established a pretty strong console presence by now.
Actually they are pretty much the only console presence worth noting around here...
Anyway, I have the impression MS so far treated eastern markets in the fashion of "we'll just wait until They adapt to Us"... Which indeed shouldn't be very difficult to improve upon, if they decide to bother this time around.
Fafalada said:
Same feeling here!
I really hope that Microsoft learned something this generation, and that they are working that out.
Everytime the consoles sale charts in japan is shown, people argue for hour about the fact that japan is a close minded market, or worse that the japaneses are rasists or something. There's maybe reasons to think that the japanese market is hard to enter, but the Xbox's sales problems have other explanation; no games (or a very few), no support (last games published are 100% english games).
Since the start they did errors, the "main" launch game of the xbox in japan was not Halo, but a crappy game where you played a mouse...brilliant. All that because a marketing genius thought that the best game available for the system will sell less than a bad, but kawaii (in fact it wasn't even that), mouse game. 2 years later halo is one of the rare title that sale well on xbox in japan.
Example: Last week Media Create chart.
PlayStation 2 47.391 1.007.891
GameCube 6.263 327.663
Xbox 557 17.057
PSone 310 8.610
That's a defcon 5 alarm for MS, they need to give their XboxNext a chance in japan, they need japanese titles, i won't even talk about good ones...just japanese titles, that will be a good start, 'cause 600 consoles a week that doesn't even pay the salary of one guy in MSG japan.
Now, saving the Xbox in japan is Mission impossible, the best thing they have (must) to do is to prepare the XboxNext coming, and the best way to do that is, IMHO, to buy NOW exclusive (japan) titles and/or japaneses developers/publishers.
Evil_Cloud
Veteran
Magnum PI said:
DOA3 ahead with 200.000-ish
DOAX not far behind
And probably Ninja Gaiden around 150k-200k-ish soon.
I think DOA3 is indeed the title with the most impact for the Xbox in Japan, but one of the few.
Offhand, I think properly going after the asian markets is not "necessary" but is certainly a good idea, especially as just about every company is drooling over China's enormous market open up--and they'll be even harder to succeed in than Japan and South Korea, I figure. Finding the right appeal, and refining the right business attitudes is much better to do now, as it will translate to bigger gains in the future.
Offhand, I think properly going after the asian markets is not "necessary" but is certainly a good idea, especially as just about every company is drooling over China's enormous market open up--and they'll be even harder to succeed in than Japan and South Korea, I figure. Finding the right appeal, and refining the right business attitudes is much better to do now, as it will translate to bigger gains in the future.
If they can get better return on investment from buying Bioware then any of those other companies then they should buy Bioware first ... marketshare in Japan is only important if it brings in the money. They have plenty of ground to make up in their primary markets, concentrate on your strengths first and all that.
Evil_Cloud
Veteran
zurich said:
Not if it are Western Myths about ancient China.
Magnum PI said:
I'm not saying that halo was the best selling game on Xbox in japan.(it was the third best seller, before NG) I'm only saying that MSGJ did a mistake when they let Halo on the background and when they pushed a mouse game as a AAA title.Evil_Cloud said:
Yes DOA3 is the best seller Xbox Games in japan(by far), by the last charts (from Magicbox.com)
DOA3 sold 140,000 in 2002 and did not reappear in 2003 (lowest sale in 2003 top100 was 54.000) so it maybe be around 180.000~200.000 copies by now, DOAVX sold 110.000 copies in 2003.
For Ninja Gaiden i definitely not sure, because i heard that it sales well, but some facts news says the contrary, like this gamepro news, and Ninja Gaiden appears only once on the japanese chart (5. Ninja Gaiden (XB, Temco) - 38,859 / 38,859, Charts for March 8-14.)
Anyway MS should be thankful to tecmo and specially to Itagaki's Ninja Team.
Strategist
Newcomer
Obviously Microsoft should put more thought into their Japanese launch for Xbox 2 but by no means should they see it as their main priority.
Their is a simple strategic management principle - 'Build upon what you have and expand where you can'.
Microsoft now has a considerable userbase in Europe, America and parts of Asia therefore, their main concern should be to capitalise on these areas again, increasing market share further and basically, trying to make themselves the dominant force in the areas (where they are already strong.).
Buying bioware is a great more (if they do it.). Bioware produced one of the top games on the xbox so far (KOTOR), they have a large list of high grade PC titles and are well known in the west... It's gaurenteed game sales, A company currently on a high (unlike Rare who have some what slipped into insignificance over the past few years.) who is still innovating.
Japan should be seen as a side project (not like it was with the first Xbox launch), Microsoft should invest there, they should release specific games and goodies for that area but they should not let it interfer with it's core market... companies that do that end up losing their core customer base.
have fun...
Their is a simple strategic management principle - 'Build upon what you have and expand where you can'.
Microsoft now has a considerable userbase in Europe, America and parts of Asia therefore, their main concern should be to capitalise on these areas again, increasing market share further and basically, trying to make themselves the dominant force in the areas (where they are already strong.).
Buying bioware is a great more (if they do it.). Bioware produced one of the top games on the xbox so far (KOTOR), they have a large list of high grade PC titles and are well known in the west... It's gaurenteed game sales, A company currently on a high (unlike Rare who have some what slipped into insignificance over the past few years.) who is still innovating.
Japan should be seen as a side project (not like it was with the first Xbox launch), Microsoft should invest there, they should release specific games and goodies for that area but they should not let it interfer with it's core market... companies that do that end up losing their core customer base.
have fun...
Significant migration of game developers from PC to console was always inevitable. The opportunity the console market presented them was too big to ignore as the PC space matured and slowed in growth. The console manufacturers then plucked high-profile titles from their PC prominence to put in their own cap, like Sony with Grand Theft Auto 3. Microsoft and the Xbox served as a springboard for the existing trend and the better entry platform for PC developers architecturally and demographically.
However, the PC market is still ripe for its established developers, so they must continue support for it.
However, the PC market is still ripe for its established developers, so they must continue support for it.
MfA said:
I think most of best selling franchises still come from Japanese market, thus making marketshare in Japan one of most important priority...Microsoft's efforts so far didn't do much to help them win marketshare in Japan. They are trying to downplay the importance of Japanese market because they almost have no chance of winning there.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
Most best selling titles are made by western developers. The only Japanese franchises that still have any legs really are GT, MGS, FF, and the 3D fighters. You might want to include RE and Ominusha in there, but they've lost ground recently. Ninja Gaiden might turn out to be a big seller as well.
GTA, EA Sports, Halo, EA movie licenses, Ubisoft's games, THQ's games etc... are all gaining more and more traction.
It used to be that Japan was 30% of the market and 60% of the big sellers in the west, but it's more like 20/25 now. Japanese games represent about 25% of the western market now, which isn't much more than the size of the Japanese market.
This year might be a boost for Japanese developers, because of GT4 and MGS3, but long term things don't really look great for Japanese developers in the west, mainly because cultural considerations are so important now.
GTA, EA Sports, Halo, EA movie licenses, Ubisoft's games, THQ's games etc... are all gaining more and more traction.
It used to be that Japan was 30% of the market and 60% of the big sellers in the west, but it's more like 20/25 now. Japanese games represent about 25% of the western market now, which isn't much more than the size of the Japanese market.
This year might be a boost for Japanese developers, because of GT4 and MGS3, but long term things don't really look great for Japanese developers in the west, mainly because cultural considerations are so important now.
Well like I said, I was referring to asian markets. Anyway, you know there must be something wrong with how they handle things when Sony is outselling them 20:1 in the market that supposedly hates everything Japanese and was supposed to love the PC-like XBox.megateto said:
And with the many paralels between that and MS's Japanese "success" I'd definately argue that there's a whole lot less truth to the whining about nationalism and bias of certain cultures then some people would want you to believe.
Rather then the excuses, MS simply made a piss poor effort to Japanese market, and the numbers reflect it.
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