Microsoft Phones In TGS Keynote

Company misses chance to wow Japanese media but games on the floor should do the trick.

It was business as usual for Microsoft at its keynote presentation on the opening day of this year's Tokyo Game Show. Robbie Bach took the assembled domestic and international media on a whirlwind recap of the main talking points from the last few months, and there was little that strayed from the company's pre-TGS meeting held on Thursday.

Bach speaks at this morning's event

With Japan posing unique obstacles, Microsoft has beavered away in an attempt to eke out a footing on the increasingly shaky ground that is the Japanese game market.

The primary vehicle until now has been the assembled mass of Japanese developer support, which includes the likes of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, ex-Sega designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Yoshiki Okamoto, one of the key figures in the Street Fighter franchise.

You could, however, be forgiven for forgetting that any of these admittedly important people had been brought on board as Bach's presentation was largely devoid of anything that these esteemed creators is working on.

Instead, and for a second day in a row, the difficult task of convincing the Japanese that Xbox 360 is worth giving a shot - even though only 500,000 of them supported its older brother - was put squarely on the shoulders of Epic designer Cliff Bleszinski and his third-person thrill ride Gears of War.

While the game did seem to jostle one or two attendees, there was little in the way of gushing awe, which is something the company could use at this point, three months from launch, with a Japanese audience still decidedly antagonistic to the console.

Slightly more enthusiastically received was the drum-'n-bass-backed demo reel (another leftover from Thursday), which showed off 10-second clips from several upcoming Xbox 360 titles.

Despite the console's launch being only months away now, several of the clips seemed aged, presumably due to the developers hastily putting them together to avoid spending too much time away from finishing the games themselves.

Microsoft has a hard path ahead if it's to make a success of Xbox 360 in Japan. With little in the way of Japanese support making a substantial appearance at the conference, some observers commented afterwards that the company had squandered an opportunity to win over the undecided. Instead, that task now falls on the 25 games currently on the Tokyo Game Show floor at Microsoft's strategically placed booth.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games