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NIS America - "Microsoft's not very supportive of Japanese Games"

1.6m x360 vs 80,000 xbo

Far less years, but the One won't ever reach 100,000. Ridiculously huge drop.

Of course, 1.6m is nothing in the grand scheme of things, but they effectively just abandoned whatever little they had built there.

Games do better than that. Those are still bad numbers.
 
Seems short sighted says person who has continously demonstrated a lack of sales knowledge.

I dunno if it was with you I argued before, but I remember the person never being able to show how could a port with no extra hidden costs such as overshipping could not sell enough to not even justify the port itself.

Even the so called bombas on 360 that sold 300-500k would be more than enough to recoupe porting costs and make money on a port. Now imagine if porting from Pc was even less expensive?
 

Oregano

Member
Well, part of me was talking about the series and part of the post was talking about NA. But hey, you do you. But since I think we are gonna go around in circles in an attempt to get you to read my posts, so I'm out. Have at it arguing against stuff I haven't said. Should be fun.



Seems short sighted says person who has continously demonstrated a lack of sales knowledge.

It would help if you actually made one point and stuck to it but okay, whatever.

I imagine when the future games came out, they sold good enough in the west for on PS3 them to continue to bother.

Sadly XBox owners blew their chances.

Oh and the thing about Graces, the reason why it sold less than Vesperia was probably be people really didn’t like it not in small part due to some massive game breaking issues I remember vaguely.

Graces had game breaking bugs on the Wii, which was only released in Japan.
 

Nephtes

Member
I'm curious, where are you getting this from?

My degree in computer science.
My 14 years of gainful employment developing software.
My work with DirectX.
My limited knowledge of the PS4 IDE.
My short-lived stint in the games industry from 2004-2005.

One or all of those.
 
Releasing physical discs is the dinosaur in the room :p

Not when 75% of all console full games sales revenue in 2016 was from physical discs (source: recent EEDAR report).

Like it or not, physical media for games sales on consoles is still a major part of this industry. And as long as console makers are still generating a hefty proportion of their sales revenues from territories where physical media still dominates, then we're going to be stuck with physical media for a long while yet.

Best to get used to it.
 
If they do a port to PC, an Xbox port is a hop, skip, and a jump away comparatively. I mean, it's not the flip of a switch and changing the value in a drop-down list box to "compile for Xbox", but if you've done the work for PC and Steam, going to Xbox is a lot easier than going from PS4 to PC.
Certainly easier than PS3 to X360 was...
I'm sorry, but you are wrong about how easy it is to port games to multiple platforms simultaneously. I don't know how else to explain it to you. There are plenty of mid-sized studios that only do porting work, who cost way more money than any localization company has to spend, and even they sometimes have issues porting games from one platform to another. These are porting studios with the backing of big publishers like EA, Activision, and WB, and even with those contracts, shoddy ports are the result. Why? Because porting games is fucking hard and fucking expensive. As hard and expensive as developing a game from scratch? No. Harder and more expensive than localizing an existing game? Definitely.
 
It would help if you actually made one point and stuck to it but okay, whatever.

It would help if you could read but ya know, whatever.

I dunno if it was with you I argued before, but I remember the person never being able to show how could a port with no extra hidden costs such as overshipping could not sell enough to not even justify the port itself.

Even the so called bombas on 360 that sold 300-500k would be more than enough to recoupe porting costs and make money on a port. Now imagine if porting from Pc was even less expensive?

300-500k

Lmao
 
I dunno if it was with you I argued before, but I remember the person never being able to show how could a port with no extra hidden costs such as overshipping could not sell enough to not even justify the port itself.

Even the so called bombas on 360 that sold 300-500k would be more than enough to recoupe porting costs and make money on a port. Now imagine if porting from Pc was even less expensive?
If you think selling 300-500k is a bomb for a niche Japanese game, you really don't understand the market at all.
 
And Japan is not very supportive of Xbox, at all.



Japanese devs don't care about Xbox either, actually USA is the only country that gave a shit about Xbox, but Americans still act like their Xbox is a big deal in gaming.
360 was huge in Europe too, and had a pretty large niche in Japan with close to 200 Japan only games.
 

Nephtes

Member
I'm sorry, but you are wrong about how easy it is to port games to multiple platforms simultaneously. I don't know how else to explain it to you. There are plenty of mid-sized studios that only do porting work, who cost way more money than any localization company has to spend, and even they sometimes have issues porting games from one platform to another. These are porting studios with the backing of big publishers like EA, Activision, and WB, and even with those contracts, shoddy ports are the result. Why? Because porting games is fucking hard and fucking expensive. As hard and expensive as developing a game from scratch? No. Harder and more expensive than localizing an existing game? Definitely.

I stand by my statement. If you're going to do the work to port to PC from PS4, porting PC to Xbox is not nearly as hard.
Okay, fine, maybe you don't have the resources to do port to PC and Xbox simultaneously. But, why not port it after you've done the port to PC. The biggest hurdle at that point is passing Microsoft's certification.

There are so many high profile Japanese games that are skipping an Xbox digital release for no good reason. Many Xbox only gamers would be happy to get these games even if it meant a wait.
 

Stanng243

Member
My degree in computer science.
My 14 years of gainful employment developing software.
My work with DirectX.
My limited knowledge of the PS4 IDE.
My short-lived stint in the games industry from 2004-2005.

One or all of those.

So it's your opinion then? It seemed like you were stating it as a fact, so I was curious as to the source.
 

Luminaire

Member
I stand by my statement. If you're going to do the work to port to PC from PS4, porting to Xbox is not nearly as hard.
Okay, fine, maybe you don't have the resources to do port to PC and Xbox simultaneously. But, why not port it after you've done the port to PC. The biggest hurdle at that point is passing Microsoft's certification.

There are so many high profile Japanese games that are skipping an Xbox digital release for no good reason. Many Xbox only gamers would be happy to get these games even if it meant a wait.

Who’s going to pay for it? If there is a history of Japanese games not selling on a console, why bother porting? It’s both a time and financial cost with a risk that can’t be considered acceptable to many devs.
 
I stand by my statement. If you're going to do the work to port to PC from PS4, porting to Xbox is not nearly as hard.
Okay, fine, maybe you don't have the resources to do port to PC and Xbox simultaneously. But, why not port it after you've done the port to PC. The biggest hurdle at that point is passing Microsoft's certification.

There are so many high profile Japanese games that are skipping an Xbox digital release for no good reason. Many Xbox only gamers would be happy to get these games even if it meant a wait.
Small companies just don't have the resources, and the market on Xbox doesn't justify the risk.
We aren't talking about high profile Japanese releases though, we are talking about niche releases from NIS and Falcom. Sure, Square Enix has the resources to port games to Xbox, I'm not arguing they don't. The minimum print runs for physical copies is also irrelevant to Square Enix, because they would never print a run that small. Most Japanese developers and publishers do not have the resources of Square Enix though.
 
If you think selling 300-500k is a bomb for a niche Japanese game, you really don't understand the market at all.

Read again. I said the "So called bombs". In this very thread people are calling Vesperia on 360 a bomb and that's a game that sold between 300-500k.

Anyway, niche titles that sell only a fraction of that is all the more reason why they are short sighted to not support another console. If the game costs so little to develop they can make a profit with 50-80k units, how can it not be worth it to port anywhere they can? Specially if again, porting to Xbox from PC is likely cheaper than ever?
 
Small companies just don't have the resources, and the market on Xbox doesn't justify the risk.
We aren't talking about high profile Japanese releases though, we are talking about niche releases from NIS and Falcom. Sure, Square Enix has the resources to port games to Xbox, I'm not arguing they don't. The minimum print runs for physical copies is also irrelevant to Square Enix, because they would never print a run that small. Most Japanese developers and publishers do not have the resources of Square Enix though.

The resources needed to port to xbone is basically having a single xbox retail, you can almost literally drop your code to it now there's a way to launch games without any certification through the creators program.
 

Nephtes

Member
Who’s going to pay for it? If there is a history of Japanese games not selling on a console, why bother porting? It’s both a time and financial cost with a risk that can’t be considered acceptable to many devs.

Small companies just don't have the resources, and the market on Xbox doesn't justify the risk.
We aren't talking about high profile Japanese releases though, we are talking about niche releases from NIS and Falcom. Sure, Square Enix has the resources to port games to Xbox, I'm not arguing they don't. The minimum print runs for physical copies is also irrelevant to Square Enix, because they would never print a run that small. Most Japanese developers and publishers do not have the resources of Square Enix though.


That's why I've been suggesting that these Japanese devs should consider releasing digitally only on the Xbox to mitigate the risk and reduce their costs.

Fuck minimum print runs. Avoid that cost and risk altogether.
SE has already shown time and time again that given the opportunity to release a game on Xbox, they won't (Secret of Mana, Nier, Dissidia, etc.)

When you don't go after customers on a platform, you always ensure you get exactly 0 of them.
 
Read again. I said the "So called bombs". In this very thread people are calling Vesperia on 360 a bomb and that's a game that sold between 300-500k.

Anyway, niche titles that sell only a fraction of that is all the more reason why they are short sighted to not support another console. If the game costs so little to develop they can make a profit with 50-80k units, how can it not be worth it to port anywhere they can? Specially if again, porting to Xbox from PC is likely cheaper than ever?
They are not shortsighted in not supporting Xbox. Japanese games way less on Xbox than PS4 in the West, and those are the big name titles. The niche titles would sell even worse because the market isn't there. And porting is an additional cost that is on top of the development budget, these companies survive on 50k sales because they are extremely lean and don't have unnecessary costs...like porting to risky platforms.
The resources needed to port to xbone is basically having a single xbox retail, you can almost literally drop your code to it now there's a way to launch games without any certification through the creators program.
It is NOT that easy to port your Steam version PC game to Xbox. These PS4 to PC ports are not Universal Windows Apps or something.
 
That's why I've been suggesting that these Japanese devs should consider releasing digitally only on the Xbox to mitigate the risk and reduce their costs.

Fuck minimum print runs. Avoid that cost and risk altogether.
SE has already shown time and time again that given the opportunity to release a game on Xbox, they won't (Secret of Mana, Nier, Dissidia, etc.)

When you don't go after customers on a platform, you always ensure you get exactly 0 of them.

If digital accounts for ~40% of game sales and the game would sell like shit on Xbox already, how well do you think those games would do if they went digital only?
 
ah yes, we're back to the "xbox has no games lmao" argument again, classy

Man, I own an original xbox, a 360 and an XB1, and I'd like to get an XB1X in the future, I'm part of the rewards program, I stream on Blim from time to time. I get all my multiplatform games on XB because I prefer XB live over the competition but it would be naive of my part to not accept that the console doesn't have a problem to bring over some games even if they don't sell well in Japan.

This is like the safest prediction ever made: "niche Japanese games don't sell on xbox". Of course they don't, you can count the ones available using your fingers and you don't promote those even a bit, so you cannot attract people that may be interested in those games, therefore NIS or Falcom don't see a reason to support your platform because their audience is not there. MS need to invest a little bit in those titles because in the end we are not talking about not getting only Disgaea 5, bigger franchises like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts are still missing (we didn't get FFXII nor the KH collection) and games that became hits like Nioh or Nier:Automata are not there either.

As a consumer I can joke all I want about they not supporting games because if it's not that way, they have done a pretty good job convincing me they just don't care.
 
This problem is here because of both sides. Both MS and japanese devs are in a cycle of not getting the games on Xbox. It's not a one-side fault. That said, even if having more games in a plataform is good how much of an investment would it be? Will it pay off? I think that MS is being smart by bringing the big guys to xbox showing that if your game is known it can sell. Of course, some niche games may not be as popular but that haven't stopped indies from publishing there. The problem here is the japanese market. It has not accepted the Xbox, not even on the 360 era and therefore the japanese devs won't see a return on the market that they are aiming.

Betting in West only is risky and as time goes by and I fear that the acceptance will lower even more. "But what about PC? PC is small in Japan too!" But the PC install base is huge. Looking at players at Steam right now the minimum number of players online is 9M at a given time. Even with this only big game sell well (Nier has 610k owners in Steamspy while Trails in The Sky SC or 3 45k and 11k owners; the first one [which has 300k owners] have been heavily discounted and if anything shows that the anime enthusiasts core is very small even on Steam as it has the lowest median play time of them all and all of the games have similar metascores meaning that quality isn't the problem).

Anyway, Microsoft should actually allow this games on their platform without charging the devs anything. It may seem that they will lose money on the short term, but they will have public support for this games in the future, allowing the user base for this games to grow. MS don't need exclusive japanese games it just need the 3rd party ones. On the same note, japanese devs should communicate better with western audiences about what they are going to do and test the waters. Sadly there is not a easy way to do that.
 

Keinning

Member
Man, I own an original xbox, a 360 and an XB1, and I'd like to get an XB1X in the future, I'm part of the rewards program, I stream on Blim from time to time. I get all my multiplatform games on XB because I prefer XB live over the competition but it would be naive of my part to not accept that the console doesn't have a problem to bring over some games even if they don't sell well in Japan.

This is like the safest prediction ever made: "niche Japanese games don't sell on xbox". Of course they don't, you can count the ones available using your fingers and you don't promote those even a bit, so you cannot attract people that may be interested in those games, therefore NIS or Falcom don't see a reason to support your platform because their audience is not there. MS need to invest a little bit in those titles because in the end we are not talking about not getting only Disgaea 5, bigger franchises like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts are still missing (we didn't get FFXII nor the KH collection) and games that became hits like Nioh or Nier:Automata are not there either.

As a consumer I can joke all I want about they not supporting games because it's actually true.

I have a switch. That doesn't give me free reign to say the switch is a turd just because i prefer to game on my xbox.

"Games" doesn't mean "japanese games". If that's what you wanted to complain about, word it like that since the start.

Those games were always going to be released on Xbox as well.

Dragonball FighterZ, of course. Dunno why people are even arguing that. Xenoverse hit the console as well.

The other two? Show me the receipts because i doubt it. Specially Code Vein - being "souls like" means nothing to guarantee it would have a x1 version. game is incredibly anime in aesthetic and themes, and those more than usually never hit the console.

"Games"... of course they are pretty bad at supporting games in general. Buying and shutting down studios, abandoning their own projects, announcing games too early and then quietly abandoning them.

I'll tell you a secret, but you better find somewhere to sit first:
Other companies do that too

No console maker is a charity and they will all try to maximize profits anywhere they can. Even *gasp* sony and nintendo. This gen microsoft went harder on the fuckery, but its already backpedalling from it. Next gen can be sony for all we know. None of them are our friends.

You can be as jaded with microsoft as you want, that's your opinion and nobody has nothing to do with it. But please, try to keep the "no games lmao" dismissive posts out of it, they add nothing to the discussion specially when other people are trying to discuss the subject of the thread seriously.

I'll tell you something too: the next time I see you on a thread discussing something seriously I'll just write another joke because my comment clearly bothered you to the point you want to school me on proper thread etiquette by being patronizing.

i usually get more... bothered when i'm bothered but eh. You do you. You gotta heaps of work ahead though - i do post a lot.
 

Nephtes

Member
If digital accounts for ~40% of game sales and the game would sell like shit on Xbox already, how well do you think those games would do if they went digital only?

The margins selling a digital copy and selling a physical copy are very different things.
As to "would sell like shit" needs to be quantified.
Sure nothing is going to sell on Xbox in the numbers like PS4. But if you're motive is profit, having a larger pool to sell to is always advantageous if you can mitigate the costs of selling there.

I'm suggesting elminating the physical supply chain would be one way to achieve this, but honestly that depends on factors I don't have access too, such as what does Microsoft skim off the top on digital sales...
 

Playsage

Member
I would say if Monster Hunter World, Code Vein and Dragon Ball FighterZ are on Xbox because of Phil's trips, he did a good job.

While I believe these games won't really sell that well on Xbox, these are some of the best titles for the platform as they look to have a bigger western appeal than most japanese games.

Also, yeah, Falcom's comments makes no sense. They didn't even support the 3DS, the biggest hardware in Japan with more than 4x the sales of the Vita.

Those games were always going to be released on Xbox as well (even Code Vein, due to being BN's "Souls-like" while From is working on new projects)
The trip helped them securing the marketing exclusivity of Dragon Ball FighterZ.
 
Those games were always going to be released on Xbox as well (even Code Vein, due to being BN's "Souls-like" while From is working on new projects)
The trip helped them securing the marketing exclusivity of Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Well, that's already better for them than getting some NIS games.
 

Luminaire

Member
That's why I've been suggesting that these Japanese devs should consider releasing digitally only on the Xbox to mitigate the risk and reduce their costs.

When you don't go after customers on a platform, you always ensure you get exactly 0 of them.

They then have to dedicate people to port it to Xbox, dedicate people to QA it for Xbox, dedicate people to get it through cert for Xbox, dedicate people to market it for Xbox, dedicate people to patch it post release for Xbox if it needs them, dedicate people to handle licensing and contracts to have their game listed on the Xbox digital storefront, etc.

If it’s a small team, you’re taking people from working on other games and new projects to instead focus on porting a game that you cannot forecast for. Time is money, and there may be a financial risk involved in an unproven market. Sure, you can pay a company to do all that, but now you’re spending more for the sake of saving time, which is a resource.
 
Those games were always going to be released on Xbox as well (even Code Vein, due to being BN's "Souls-like" while From is working on new projects)
The trip helped them securing the marketing exclusivity of Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Out of those three I still can’t believe Code Vein is going to be on the XBox lol.
 
The margins selling a digital copy and selling a physical copy are very different things.
As to "would sell like shit" needs to be quantified.
Sure nothing is going to sell on Xbox in the numbers like PS4. But if you're motive is profit, having a larger pool to sell to is always advantageous if you can mitigate the costs of selling there.

I'm suggesting elminating the physical supply chain would be one way to achieve this, but honestly that depends on factors I don't have access too, such as what does Microsoft skim off the top on digital sales...
They take 30%, just like every digital storefront. You are also wrong about eliminating the physical copy mitigating the cost of selling there, as physical copies drive sales for these sorts of releases. They also allow small companies to increase their profit margin on each copy sold by selling a collector's edition for a higher retail price. If it was prudent for these companies to abandon physical copies they would have already done so, but it isn't. The lack of a physical copy of a niche Japanese release limits it's sales potential in the west, especially at full price. There are a multitude of examples of this. One recent one is Caligula Effect on Vita. Atlus tried to secure a physical release but was unable to due to licensing or contract issues on the Japanese side. Sales for that game were poor, the lack of a physical copy being a large reason why.
 

Chobel

Member
The margins selling a digital copy and selling a physical copy are very different things.
As to "would sell like shit" needs to be quantified.
Sure nothing is going to sell on Xbox in the numbers like PS4. But if you're motive is profit, having a larger pool to sell to is always advantageous if you can mitigate the costs of selling there.

I'm suggesting elminating the physical supply chain would be one way to achieve this, but honestly that depends on factors I don't have access too, such as what does Microsoft skim off the top on digital sales...

Wait , you think if you eliminate the physical release all the potential physical buyers will suddenly buy it digitally? LOLOLOLOL!!!
 
I have a switch. That doesn't give me free reign to say the switch is a turd just because i prefer to game on my xbox.

"Games" doesn't mean "japanese games". If that's what you wanted to complain about, word it like that since the start.

As a Switch owner I can tell you the dock is shit. It's not that difficult to say things like that, as questionable as those statement may be for you.

"Games"... of course they are pretty bad at supporting games in general. Buying and shutting down studios, abandoning their own projects, announcing games too early and then quietly abandoning them. I know they are not charity, but if there's something I agree with people like Shu Yoshida is that commitment to their own projects -even if it's for something like a niche game like The Last Guardian- is just good PR for them. And MS doesn't seem to care too much about that and they just don't get games, which in the end hurt their platform and doesn't inspire confidence from some people.
 

Nephtes

Member
They take 30%, just like every digital storefront. You are also wrong about eliminating the physical copy mitigating the cost of selling there, as physical copies drive sales for these sorts of releases. They also allow small companies to increase their profit margin on each copy sold by selling a collector's edition for a higher retail price. If it was prudent for these companies to abandon physical copies they would have already done so, but it isn't. The lack of a physical copy of a niche Japanese release limits it's sales potential in the west, especially at full price. There are a multitude of examples of this. One recent one is Caligula Effect on Vita. Atlus tried to secure a physical release but was unable to due to licensing or contract issues on the Japanese side. Sales for that game were poor, the lack of a physical copy being a large reason why.

I feel like you made my point for me by pointing to Caligula Effect... A game that they elected to release to exactly one platform in the West.
Had they released on PS4 and PC and expanded their potential customer base, they would most assuredly have sold more copies.

Lots of developers have abandoned physical copies to great effect.
How many copies of PUBG: Battlegrounds have sold?
Hearthstone?
Prior to the PS4 version, Undertale?

Wait , you think if you eliminate the physical release all the potential physical buyers will suddenly buy it digitally? LOLOLOLOL!!!

If you want to play X game based on reviews, hype, word of mouth, whatever.... And it only releases digitally, are you going to buy it or skip it because you can't have your precious physical copy?

Digital sales may only make up 40% of total sales for a game... But if your game is digital only, then 100% of your sales would be digital.

If a publisher decided physical minimums for Xbox one were ridiculous and decided not to release the game on Xbox, how many potential digital sales did the publisher turn down?
By your metric, at least 40% of what he would have sold totally had he chosen to release on Xbox.

Again, you get none of the customers you don't attempt to get.
 

Stanng243

Member
I feel like you made my point for me by pointing to Caligula Effect... A game that they elected to release to exactly one platform in the West.
Had they released on PS4 and PC and expanded their potential customer base, they would most assuredly have sold more copies.

Lots of developers have abandoned physical copies to great effect.
How many copies of PUBG: Battlegrounds have sold?
Hearthstone?
Prior to the PS4 version, Undertale?

They may have indeed sold more copies, but there's no guarantee it would have covered the porting costs. It's not a PS4 game, it's a Vita game. So their architecture is vastly different.
 
I feel like you made my point for me by pointing to Caligula Effect... A game that they elected to release to exactly one platform in the West.
Had they released on PS4 and PC and expanded their potential customer base, they would most assuredly have sold more copies.

Lots of developers have abandoned physical copies to great effect.
How many copies of PUBG: Battlegrounds have sold?
Hearthstone?
Prior to the PS4 version, Undertale?
That doesn't prove your point at all. Porting a Vita game to PS4 and PC costs resources that can be better spent elswhere, which is what I and many other posters have been trying to explain to you. These companies are small and have limited resources, they have to make the best of what they have, and that means not porting to Xbox.
Are you just trolling now? PUBG and Hearthstone are not comparable to niche Japanese games. Undertale isn't either, as it is a breakout indie hit that way overperformed relative to similar games.
 

Wamb0wneD

Member
I don't care what japanese dev say

#believe

phil-spencer-believe.jpg
Stepping up the Reggie-game I see.

We almost ended page 1 without an "Xbox has no games" shitpost. Come on guys, you can do better.
Nah, Xbox can do better with their exclusives though. When is the Crackdown 3 bomba supposed to release?
 

Nephtes

Member
That doesn't prove your point at all. Porting a Vita game to PS4 and PC costs resources that can be better spent elswhere, which is what I and many other posters have been trying to explain to you. These companies are small and have limited resources, they have to make the best of what they have, and that means not porting to Xbox.
Are you just trolling now? PUBG and Hearthstone are not comparable to niche Japanese games. Undertale isn't either, as it is a breakout indie hit that way overperformed relative to similar games.

But that is my point.
Japanese devs aren't even attempting the digital only route.
Western developers have embraced the digital present (it's not the future any more), and it's worked quite well.

Edit: I wonder if I could offer my services to these niche developers to port their localized PC games to Xbox if they would let me have... Say... 50% of the revenue generated by the Xbox version... Big question is... Would that be more or less than my current salary...
 
I'll tell you a secret, but you better find somewhere to sit first:
Other companies do that too

No console maker is a charity and they will all try to maximize profits anywhere they can. Even *gasp* sony and nintendo. This gen microsoft went harder on the fuckery, but its already backpedalling from it. Next gen can be sony for all we know. None of them are our friends.

You can be as jaded with microsoft as you want, that's your opinion and nobody has nothing to do with it. But please, try to keep the "no games lmao" dismissive posts out of it, they add nothing to the discussion specially when other people are trying to discuss the subject of the thread seriously.

I'll tell you something too: the next time I see you on a thread discussing something seriously I'll just write another joke because my comment clearly bothered you to the point you want to school me on proper thread etiquette by being patronizing.
 
But that is my point.
Japanese devs aren't even attempting the digital only route.
Western developers have embraced the digital present (it's not the future any more), and it's worked quite well.

Edit: I wonder if I could offer my services to these niche developers to port their localized PC games to Xbox if they would let me have... Say... 50% of the revenue generated by the Xbox version... Big question is... Would that be more or less than my current salary...
I mean, digital only is the same problem in Japan as Xbox, Japanese consumers have not adopted digital on console like western consumers have. It's more profitable to release a physical version in Japan along with a digital version than it is to go solely digital. Which should be obvious, hence why all the companies are doing it. I know you think you've got it all figured out, but you don't know these companies' market better than they do.
Also LOL at that suggestion. If you really have the ability to port games from PS4 to Xbox by yourself, by all means try and convince these companies to let you port their games. We'll see how that works out for you.
 
The margins selling a digital copy and selling a physical copy are very different things.
As to "would sell like shit" needs to be quantified.
Sure nothing is going to sell on Xbox in the numbers like PS4. But if you're motive is profit, having a larger pool to sell to is always advantageous if you can mitigate the costs of selling there.

I'm suggesting elminating the physical supply chain would be one way to achieve this, but honestly that depends on factors I don't have access too, such as what does Microsoft skim off the top on digital sales...

Microsoft takes a 30% cut on digital sales (same as most digital stores, including PSN). But things don't work the way you think they do anyway. Going digital only doesn't just mean "less costs", it also means dramatically reducing an already small market.

But that is my point.
Japanese devs aren't even attempting the digital only route.
Western developers have embraced the digital present (it's not the future any more), and it's worked quite well.

Uh, you mean the same Japanese publishers who're releasing their games on Steam? Not to mention the digital only PS4 releases (I am Setsuna, Secret of Mana, etc).
 
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