RSS
Kotaku
For all Microsoft's success in markets like North America and Australasia, in other places? Not so hot. Places like Japan. Europe (Britain excepted), too, actually. Those snooty continental types don't take to their big-men-and-guns, driving and sports games like a lot of hot-red-blooded English-speakers do. To address this, Microsoft are doing what they should have done five years ago: they're expanding their Microsoft Game Studios operations into Europe with local outposts.
Microsoft's Phil Spencer explains the move in an interview he gave with Develop:
Going forward, the big thing for Microsoft is success in Europe. What we would like to do with Xbox 360 is have great European games for all the parts of Europe - certain new games may resonate stronger in Southern Europe, different to new ones that may have fans in Northern Europe. That's part of our strategy - but the only way to get there is to have people on the ground who understand the market; sitting in Redmond trying to understand those regions is obviously very difficult.Like I said, this is five years too late: a big reason Europe is Sony heartland is because SCEE is able to cater directly to the local market with things like SingStar, which at eight million sold and counting is the kind of product MS can only dream of pushing on the European market. Still, this is at least a signal of intent! Let's see how it goes. Can't get any worse than their Japanese operations, can it? Can it?
Q&A: Microsoft's Phil Spencer [Develop]
