14 DAY TRIAL // The Tokyo Game Show is starting today and it is one of the biggest conventions in Asia in terms of games and title developers. All of the major local developers and publishers have announced their presence, including some western ones, like Microsoft.
The Redmond company is looking to improve its sales in this country and to continue to hold the advantage it now has on the local big companies Nintendo and Sony. And in order to do so, Microsoft wasn't going to let the TGS pass by, so it has announced that the booth of the company is going to be side by side with the one of Square Enix, one of the most popular Japanese publishers, with the hit franchise Final Fantasy.
"We're going to take advantage of our booths being side-by-side, because both the Square Enix and Microsoft booths are working in tandem. This time around, we're putting the greatest importance in getting the largest number of visitors to play our games. At the Microsoft and the Square Enix booths, we're holding a lottery. The winner gets to go to the Square Enix booth and play... You'll have to wait to that day to see what happens," said Jyoji Sakaguchi, marketing executive of Xbox Japan.
It will be a true show of man and especially console power as Microsoft has also said that it will have 140 demo kiosks in its section of the game show to showcase its Xbox 360 console and the titles developed for it. And considering the Japanese public, the locally developed RPGs like Eternal Sonata or Tales of Vesparia will be the stars of their booth.
The Japanese branch of Microsoft is definitely doing very good, with sales of the Xbox 360 dominating the ones of the very popular Wii and PlayStation 3. This is due to the fact that the Redmond company has been signing up local developers in order to create games specifically tailored to the demands of the Japanese market and have really promoted them through the local media. All in all, Microsoft is going to do a pretty good job at the TGS.