We all know how much Xbox head Phil Spencer wants to improve the brand's reputation in Japan, and following Xbox Game Pass's launch in the country last year, it looks like the marketing team is really trying to ramp things up.
Earlier today, popular Virtual YouTuber Shishiro Botan hosted an hour-long promotional stream dedicated to Xbox Game Pass on her YouTube channel, pushing it out to her 728k subscribers. Botan is part of Hololive Production, which is a talent agency managing various popular YouTubers, so we wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft has done some kind of deal with the company to promote Xbox Game Pass agency-wide.
The stream went into details explaining what Xbox Game Pass is, looking at the library of games, and then playing through portions of Gears 5 and Control. The comments on the video seem very positive about the collaboration and Microsoft's desire to increase Xbox's footprint in the country, so let's hope we see more of this moving forward!
Thanks to @LtSarge for sharing this news tip with us! What do you make of this? Tell us down below.
Comments 14
@ltsarge you famous!!
Great localized marketing by xbox. If this leads to more games and genres getting added to my gamepass I'm all for it.
I think mainly showing gears wasn't a good idea as that genre doesn't sell well in Japan, they should of showed off more jrpgs and games like ori and the medium
This is why MS haven't cracked this market yet.
The marketing idea is great but the focus is all wrong.
They literally have Japanese focused games like the Yakuza franchise, Octopath Traveller, Dragon Quest XI S, Code Vein, Final Fasntasy games etc...yet they focus on Western games like Gears 5 and Control...
They also need to push the xCloud ability, as Japan is heavily a handheld market these days.
Show those Japanese game franchises running on that and you'll soon see Japanese Game Pass subscribers jump up!
@Krzzystuff Lol I'm just happy that I could help out since I love seeing Microsoft paying more attention to the Japanese market. They definitely need a larger presence there with Xbox and moves like this are certainly a good sign of what's to come. Hopefully they'll keep promoting Game Pass over there and generate more interest, which could lead to more Japanese games being added to the service like you said.
Also, just to add to this topic, apparently another Hololive member is planning on promoting Game Pass tomorrow based on this scheduled stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROgREwSEsDU
The games that will be shown are Microsoft Flight Simulator and Forza Horizon 4.
So yeah it definitely seems like there will be a lot of promoting going on throughout the coming days.
@Xiovanni Umm you have a point it is possible that Hololive got to pick content from list... that’s popular? Yelling that at the screen during GTA?
@LtSarge Wow dang another one. Also thanks for being a busy bunny
Now I do hope they get to some other titles....
@Royalblues You might be onto something there regarding NIS and Falcom games. People (including me) are constantly going on about the Persona series, but personally, I would love to see more love for series like Trails of Cold Steel and Ys. Imagine if Microsoft could help to finally bring these games the attention they deserve by adding them to Game Pass and therefore reaching a much wider audience. Because if we're being honest here, games like Trails of Cold Steel absolutely rivals the Persona series. They just need to be noticed by more people.
@mousieone Haha no worries. As a matter of fact, I love watching Hololive and I actively follow all the members on YouTube so that's why I've been seeing all these streams of them promoting Game Pass.
But yeah, it does seem like a fair amount of them have been selected to promote the service and assigned two specific games each to play. So we might see more titles being shown off in the coming days!
It's just weird to me seeing two of my favourite things coming together like this, haha. This is a promotion I can definitely get behind!
At least there trying.
@LtSarge yeh should be fun. It looks like they are matching the Vtuber pretty well up with the game selection. Can’t wait to see whose next
@blinx01 @UltimateOtaku91 Well I went digging and from her various profiles Botan actually likes shooters such as COD and Rainbow 6 Siege as well as other military themed FPS.
I’m going to have assume she had something to do with the game choice in this respect whether she picked it directly or Xbox Japan watch her streams and thought she’d be a good match. Most likely her audience is also probably into that type of game as well. It’s actually pretty smart.
@blinx01 @UltimateOtaku91
You fellas have it wrong. Every Hololive V-tuber has a genre they specialize on. Botan happens to be a lifelong Xbox gamer and her focus are FPS, TPS and adventure games. Xbox absolutely nailed this one.
You need to buy into a few Japanese developers x box don't balls this up its a huge market.
@gingataisen ah I see makes sense now then
@gingataisen
Fair enough. I don't watch streamers, so my knowledge is null and void apart from knowing they a good alternate way to promote games by publishers!
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