Microsoft Japan launches E3 contest

The last few months have represented a good time to be a Japanese Xbox owner. Microsoft Japan is following up its flashy holiday party for Xbox Live users with another juicy promotion for its loyal customers. Announced yesterday in Japan, the "Become an Xbox Correspondent!" promotion is a sweepstakes open only to Xbox owners. Ten lucky winners will fly to Los Angeles on May 10 to attend E3. While there, they will attend press events, play new Xbox games on display, and write reports on their experiences, which will be published in Japanese gaming magazines as well as on the official Japanese Xbox Web site.

This E3 trip represents an unusual opportunity because it's generally very difficult to attend E3. Like the holiday party, which featured the final rounds of a national Halo tournament as well as demos of anticipated games like Ninja Gaiden, this latest promotion is aimed right at the heart of the Xbox's Japanese users, who represent a small group of serious gamers.

Taken together, these two promotions suggest that Xbox Japan is deliberately targeting grassroots gamers, perhaps in an attempt to create loyal users who will promote the console and espouse its benefits to friends and family. This shift in strategy may be a reflection of the recent changes in management at Microsoft Japan's Xbox Division. The past six months have seen Sega veteran Mike Fischer join as director of marketing (in August of 2003), while former Squaresoft COO Yoshihiro Maruyama took the helm as general manager soon thereafter.

In any case, there's no doubt that the Xbox Japan organization has launched some innovative and thoughtfully designed promotions in the last few months. It will be interesting to see what it comes up with next.