Kenji Inafune is a video game legend that wound up leaving the company that helped jump-start his career. In simpler terms, Capcom is a horrible crappy company that is a mere fraction of what it used to be. Anyways, he needs money to fund his next game---which is a spiritual sequel to his classic Mega Man franchise.
The Xbox 360 did not sell over 600 copies of its system in Japan in its latest week. Again. Japan has not bought 2,000,000 Xbox 360s yet during the system’s entire run.
Inafune needs money. Microsoft needs Japanese support and love. I smell a potential relationship.
If Microsoft ever plans on becoming the world leader in the gaming industry, they must tackle the Japan issue. Their sales in the Far East are above and beyond pathetic. They can’t get anything going outside the United States, whom has been there for them since the very moment that Halo burst onto the scene. 57% of the Xbox 360 sales were in North America, far bigger than the PS3 and the Wii (34% and 44% respectively). Guess which one is currently in last place this generation.
Another fun piece of trivia: whichever system sell the most in Japan wins the generation—it has remained true since the NES sold nearly 20 million copies back in the 80s/90s. The SNES, PSX, PS2, and Nintendo Wii each outsold the competitors in the Asia market and ultimately became the big seller. Japan can also save systems, as the country breathed life into comatose hardware like the 3DS and especially the PSP.
Financing Inafune’s game could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and a friendship involving a legendary Japanese gaming figure. The Mega Man games were absolute hits in Japan, and seeing that the Green Machine’s 3rd model is the exclusive system holding the creator’s next invention could stir the pot and raise some curiosity.
Inafune is requesting a mere $900,000 for his game is a cakewalk for Microsoft. Halo 4 cost more than $60 million to produce and market, would a cool million honestly hurt Microsoft in exchange for a potentially good Mega Man-like game built directly from the legend himself?
If Microsoft was smart, they would put down the money, give him creative freedom that Capcom refused to offer towards the end of Inafune’s time there, and potentially get a good hit that would resonate in Japan. This will not solve all their problems in appealing to the Japanese and Oceanic audience, but it would be a giant step forward.
Mighty No. 9 needs to be made. And the Xbox One would benefit from its release more than anybody else.
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