[360] Microsoft do do do Japan

By Mikel Reparaz
published

Pre-TGS Xbox conference info inside

Wednesday 20 September 2006
While sales of the Xbox 360 have taken a serious beating in Japan - it's selling worse than the notoriously unpopular Xbox - Microsoft hasn't given up on the country just yet. At its pre-Tokyo Game Show press conference, which took place earlier today, Microsoft used a slew of new accessories (click the images tab above for a gander) and locally-developed games to show - again - that it is dedicated to making Xbox 360 big in Japan.

The general manager of Microsoft's Japanese Xbox division, Takashi Sensui, took the stage to outline the company's 'do! do! do!' initiative. Sensui explained that this amusing sounding motto is all about three concepts: 'do! Choice', which in this case means releasing the stripped-down Core System package, previously unavailable in Japan. 'do! Game' - focusing on its 70 Japanese-developed games, 50 of which will be exclusive to Japan. And 'do! Live', which involves extending the reach of Xbox Live to PCs and mobile phones.

While we'd love to talk about Sensui's elaborations on what this would mean for the Japanese market, or Xbox chief Peter Moore's announcement that 360 will soon launch in India, we'll instead cut straight to the stuff you'll be interested in. No, not Halo 3. That apparently didn't even merit a mention, although Microsoft had plenty of other cool stuff to show off.

Mikel Reparaz
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.