Phil Spencer: The Number of PC Game Pass Users Has Quadrupled in Japan - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 November 2023 / 5,452 Views
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in an interview with Famitsu was asked about the growth of Xbox in Japan and how Xbox Game Pass has contributed to to this.
The size of the Japanese PC game market has roughly doubled in the past three years, but the number of PC Game Pass users has quadrupled," said Spencer. "Game Pass is growing faster than the market, which is great for the Xbox brand as a whole."
The Xbox Series X|S has been a much bigger success than the Xbox One was in Japan with over 500,000 units sold to date compared to just 116,000 for the Xbox One. Spencer attributed part of the success to the Xbox Series S and connecting with Japanese developers more.
"We created the Xbox Series S because we thought that people in Japan would probably prefer a smaller version, and the [Xbox Series S] was actually well received," said Spencer. "I think this was an effective strategic decision."
He added, "We also maintain close communication with Japanese creators. So you're encouraging Japanese creators to create games that Japanese players want to play. Being able to offer that on Xbox. I believe that this is extremely important. I think we've made great progress in this regard over the past five or six years, but there's still a lot of work to be done. Having Japanese creators make Xbox games continues to be an important theme for us.
"When it came to Xbox One, I feel that we didn't have enough connections with Japanese creators. I personally feel that proactively talking with Japanese development teams and creators and building relationships of trust is extremely important in order to develop games on Xbox. When I come to Japan, I usually visit around 10 to 15 partner companies."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
would like to know the real number of subscribers.
Yea, you know its still very low when Phil doesn't actually give you real numbers and he's just playing with words like using "quadrupled".
We've all seen before that if a game launched on GP Phil would easily give a statement about "X" amount of players that played (demoed lol) it.
And not including potato chips pringles 1 month subs in those
So, 4 people since now have Game Pass in Japan :P
Pretty easy to quadruple an extremely small number.
While it is a very small number, I do not think it is ‘easy’ to do and the small number from the start is proving that….
It was quite easy to beat X1 sales on Japan, but they are nowhere near X360 numbers, so SanAndreasX point stands. Also PC growth was from something that already existed for several years when GP could be measuring from almost inexistent to now so it is just a pointless comparison.
Numbers please contrarian Phil.
This dude is dead last, his console sells less than last gen console, and he is every fucking week bragging in media. Bro , just stfu you walking meme.
Still won't outsell Xbox 360.
Not sure if that's really saying much. If they had only one subscriber and now they have four those numbers still suck. Uncle Phil should just say what the actual numbers are but I'm not holding my breath.
the only way for XBOX to be popular in Japan is to have Xbox portable (series s equivalent). That would sell like hotcakes
Does that mean it went from 25 to 100? Come on Phil -how about some actual numbers!!!!!!
A little over 16,000 to close to 70,000 is my guess.
Xbox Series S would be the main driver there. Has had weeks where it sold well and you need something to play on it.
Phil is talking only about PC GP subs no Series involved.
Oh thank you! I skimmed over that detail.
4 gamepass users are on holiday in Japan right now
I’m fairly sure the Japanese PC market has more than quadrupled in size though. It went from almost non-existent to doing 30% of all Japanese sales for Armored Core VI and other recent releases.
So the take-up rate is probably similar.
According to Phil the market has double, PC gamepass has quadrupled.
Xbox Series S was well received, because Series X wasn't available :D
Grow from 1 to 4 then? Because he said japan was series fastest growing market and we know it is doing better than X1 but only because X1 was lousy over there. And saying they created S because of Japan... well PS5 is even bigger than X and do much better than both combined.
Series s was created because of mexican market.
Xbox needed a shift in momentum in the Japanese market. Nice turn-around that hopefully breeds future success and content for gamers.
