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In an interview with Gamasutra during the throes of E3, Peter Moore had a few words about Microsoft's plan to garner Japan's interest in the Xbox 360, and made a surprising comment concerning MS's stance on handheld gaming. We'll get to the handheld part later, so first things first. When asked about how Microsoft planned on keeping Japanese interest in the Xbox brand, he had this to say:

We're spending a lot of time with the developers over there, and we've got publishing partners working with them to globalize their content to make sure that games like Resident Evil and Devil May Cry find their home on the platform. A lot of the Japanese publishing community looks to the success of Capcom with both Dead Rising and Lost Planet as being very successful for them.

Having that ability to broaden their horizons past Japan is now important to Japanese publishers. The Japanese market has been flatly declining for many years now, and for them to continue their business, they need to globalize. They look at us as the market leader outside of Japan, and realize that we need to be a strong partner.

Hit the jump for my thoughts on this, and the skinny on what Peter Moore said concerning the idea of Microsoft entering the handheld market:



With Blue Dragon and Trusty Bell selling reasonably well in Japan, it looks like Microsoft's plan has at least been partially effective. The big question is how can Microsoft translate this into better sales? As Peter Moore understands all too well, gaining ground in Sony/Nintendo country is a monumental task.

While Sony and Nintendo have both sold at least a million consoles there, the Xbox 360 is still trying to gain traction with the Japanese gamer. A quick peek over at VG Chartz confirms this. Right now, the Xbox 360 is still lagging behind the other two, even though it had a comfortable head start over Sony and Nintendo.

I think that's enough about Japan, for now. What about the other goodies we promised you? When questioned about whether or not Microsoft was interested in entering the handheld market, Moore had this to say:

"Fans may be waiting for awhile. Unless you've got a lot of money and can throw it my way, you're going to be waiting for awhile."

This is quite an ironic statement, considering that Microsoft pretty much prints their own money. One can only guess that Microsoft feels it has enough on its plate with the Xbox 360, and doesn't want to enter a battle with Nintendo that no-one else has been able to win since the Game Boy first hit the stage in 1989. So who wants to be first in line to step up to the plate, and front Microsoft the money to get the ball rolling?