Likely on account of the Xbox One’s dismal performance in Japan,
This is not to say that Xbox One games won’t be present at other booths just that Microsoft won’t have one of their own at the show.
Admittedly they could do a private event before the show but this feels more like Microsoft are in the process of extricating themselves from the Japanese market as a whole.
Especially as the sales of the various Xboxes have never been all that great in Japan, with the latest Xbox One being the poorest performing entry thus far. So it’s not overly surprising that Microsoft are throwing in the towel somewhat.
There was already a big shake up in the management structure late last year when the former head of Xbox Japan, Takashi Sensui, resigned from his post due to the Xbox One's poor sales.
It seems that the headstrong attitude that Microsoft has taken in Japan is now running its course. As the first Xbox campaign was based around enticing publishers behind closed doors on how much money they’d make, rather than showing these companies they cared about games in the first place.
This cynicism towards gaming resulted in the majority of Japanese publishers and developers giving the console a wide berth.
While this changed a bit in the Xbox 360’s era, it never really managed to break through as the brand had already defined itself by that point.
Not to mention that in Japanese "Xbox" roughly translates to “Wrong Box”, which isn’t exactly the greatest of marketing slogans really.
Whatever happens, Microsoft’s absence from this year’s Tokyo Game Show is by no means a trivial event and I am guessing various people at
It will be interesting to see how this develops though as this really does feel like the end of an era for Microsoft and its Xbox brand in Japan.
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