Few thoughts:
First of all the fact Microsoft is using a senator to invoke the yellow peril attack against Sony, in their homeland no less is absolutely astounding and shows the level of desperation Microsoft are grasping at. This senator has no clue about the Japanese gaming market and quite frankly doesn’t have a right to speak on it if this is her level of knowledge. The fact Microsoft is even using their Japanese market share to begin with a huge red flag imo for people that want this deal to go through.
Second thought, I don’t see how this doesn’t burn bridges in japan for Microsoft. They’re already dead there, losing market share in the west, and now attacking Sony on the basis of being Japanese and doing reasonably well discounting Nintendo. If you’re a Japanese third party how do you read that as anything other than an American corporation invoking anti Japanese rhetoric? Maybe I’m getting to defensive here but it seems like a strategy that could backfire.
If more thoughts come to me I’ll post them but my initial take, especially coming off the heels of the red fall director admitting that Microsoft mandated the ps5 version be canceled, is that this is a desperate swing for the fences move here.
