Interview of Sakuguchi-san, marketing head at Microsoft Japan

Sakaguchi Joji is a marketing head at Microsoft Japan. He answered the following questions following the recent 1 million sales milestone for the Xbox360, in the 1067th issue of Famitsu Weekly.



Famitsu : Sensui-san has already shown it, but inside Japan, the Xbox 360 has reached the breakthrough number of 1 million sales. Congratulations !

Sakaguchi Joji : Thank you very much. That is also due to the support of everyone.

Famitsu : Was 1 million an objective of yours ?

Sakaguchi Joji : It is, in a way, just a checkpoint, however it was a big aim as well. Our objective from the beginning was to sell more than the first Xbox. For the first iteration, we can't say we were successful. In the meantime, a fair preparation was needed to make the next iteration come out. In Japan, there are really no examples of failed brands which try again and succeed.

Famitsu : The brand positionning is indeed strong in japan.Do the headquarters in American realise it ?

Sakaguchi Joji : That has been discussed many times. We even talked about not using the Xbox brand name, only in Japan. However, for Microsoft, Xbox is a gaming brand, and since we also had a passion for it, we were very much decided to "definitely make it succeed", and we launched it under the Xbox 360 name just like outside of Japan.

Famitsu : So there was a possibility to have a different name for the hardware in Japan ?

Sakaguchi Joji : We did different tests and had one option in the end, so there was a chance it happened.

Famitsu : I see.

Sakaguchi Joji : When we overtook the sales number of the first Xbox, we were very happy. And deeply moved.

Famitsu : So, you achieved a breakthrough with 1 million sales. Now lets look back a little. First at the time when the Xbox 360 launched. The first numbers were not really satisfying, right ?

Sakaguchi Joji : That's right. Right at launch it wasn't good. At the same time, I was representing the first party titles. "At the launch of the new hardware, there are very few first party titles, what should we do?" was a widespread comment.

Famitsu : If we compare the numbers of first party titles available at time of launch with the first Xbox launch, it was fairly less for the Xbox 360.

Sakaguchi Joji : Truly, from the launch timing, it would have been ideal to give a good impression to consumers by having a abondant number of softs. Anyway, because of the new hardware, the development did not go smoothly. On the other hand, a fairly good number of softs were already moving forward, and we entered the situation where we had to choose which softs to use to plan the come-back.

Famitsu : The RPG line-up was massive. On the first Xbox there was almost nothing of the kind. "Blue Dragon" was a big title used to show the power of the Xbox 360.

Sakaguchi Joji : I still cannot forget the time when we were shown "Blue Dragon" . The first time I saw it, I thought it was a prerender. But Sakaguchi-san told me it ran in real-time. Without thinking. I told him "are you kidding me ??" (laugh).

Famitsu : (laughs)

Sakaguchi Joji : I asked many things, and I did not know that they did technological exchanges with the team behind "ages of empires". "Blue Dragon" used and optimised the water algorythm from "ages of empires". I was really surprised to hear that.

Famitsu : The success of "Blue Dragon" had an influence on the other companies, right ?

Sakaguchi Joji : To be able to get the support from big japanese soft makers was a important Keyword for us. We were working with the mindset of how much we would be successful in Japan, I talked about that for a long time, and finally the flower bloomed last year.

Famitsu : Last year, since the launch of "Tales of Vesperia", many RPGs came out.

Sakaguchi Joji : The level of perfection of Japanese RPGs being high, I sensed that gamers were very excited about them, and longed for information about these titles. It was like they wanted to enjoy them as much as possible. The Xbox 360 gamers are not simply playing, they are honestly happy.

Interview on Gunshot and Diamonds

This is an interview published in Famitsu Weekly 1061 of Asano-san, working as a producer on the upcoming game “Gunshot and Diamonds”. I thought the concept of the game was interesting enough to translate that interview.

Famitsu: How did you become engaged on ”Gunshot and diamonds”

Kazuya Asano: In the beginning, I worked on the AQ interactive’s “I do not forgive you” title. At that time, this staff, very dear to me, asked “let’s do something else together!”. That was the trigger.

Famitsu: What kind of game is it ?

Kazuya Asano: There is a criminal that you cannot capture by strong means. He has hostages, a bomb, and there is a negociator, who negiotiates with him and find its weak point. The main character of this adventure game is the still-learning Japanese negociator.

Famitsu: Why did you chose to do a game about a negociator ?

Kazuya Asano: At the beginning, Koyabashi-san, responsible for the scenario, told me he had a strong passion about “the game theory”.　The kind of “No concession to each other”. “For your request, you have to accept my request as well.” elements a negociator can deal with ease. If we could do that, that would be interesting. Now, looking at the results, I wonder where the game theory went (laughs).

Famitsu: Games with negociators are quite rare.

Kazuya Asano: True, but there are lots of movies are dramas with such characters. For games, you can’t go with only one direction just like in dramas. If you fail negociations, it would become a bad ending and the story would change, therefore in “gunshot and diamonds” it’s a tale about a different kind of negociator than in dramas and movies.

Famitsu: Asano-san, how was your involvement in this game ?

Kazuya Asano: Producer and superviser. To the story writer, Koyabashi-san and the director Sasaki-kun, I would advise “ If you do this here this way, it would be interesting”, “let’s change a little the direction of the story” as we progress.

Famitsu: When you read the final scenario, what did you think ?

Kazuya Asano: “where did they check these stuffs ?”. There are a lot of details in the game about the major in languages of the negociator, the structure of the American police, conditions where military forces are involved, I was very impressed. The story is separated into many parts, but the basis for all those is a long flowing storyline, and at the end as you play everything blends together.

Famitsu: As a producer what kind of things do you get conscious of ?

Kazuya Asano: At SoundNobel, to create games with compelling stories, a producer is an important element. When you go for a new attempt like “Gunshots and diamonds”, a producer involves himself fully. When I see the things prepared by the graphics team, I say “if you did that scene that way, it would be better”, about dialogs I would say “If you cut the dialog here a bit, the tempo would become better”. In order to show on one screen events at the scene and at the investigation headquarters which occur at the same time, we implemented a visual technique.

Famitsu: Do you keep the experience built on past projects alive ?

Kazuya Asano: Sure. The scene is changing. My experience as a producer and the complementary experience on “I will not forgive you” has helped me. In the past at SoundNobel, the sequence remained pretty much the same, and the mostly there were no breakthroughs in the scene. The “village” became what is is now, however as a writer from the old days, I still put in some things I cherish.

Famitsu: What would like to say about the game in a few terms ?

Kazuya Asano: The negociator is in situations more profond than just a fight between justice and evil. On top of negociations, you are binded in a trusting relationship with a daring criminal, and in order to find out a weak point, you satisfy each other, trespassing the official code of morals. However, isn’t that already what is happening in our modern society ? Our sense of values become diversified and the right and wrong cannot be simply divided. In that sense I think this matches well with our time.

Famitsu: It sets up quite the expectations…

Kazuya Asano: I wanted many different things in there. But for now, just buy it and have fun with it, and feel free to complain (laughs). I wanted to let people enjoy the interesting difficulty of negociating between right and wrong, between dark and light. Do not expect at 100% a game that you have never seen before, but in the graphics, the music, the scenes, all over the place I did put “a little touch”. Please go ahead and try it out.