Phil Spencer promises JRPGs and Japanese publishers on the Xbox stage at E3 2018

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Anyone who lived through the Super Nintendo and PlayStation days remembers that Japanese RPGs were a Nintendo or Sony console thing. On Xbox, it was always rare. So when a player asked Phil Spencer on Twitter, in late April 2018, whether we would see JRPGs at the Xbox E3 conference, the answer got attention:

“For now, yes. Things can change, but, like last year, I wanted to make sure we supported our Japanese publishers on our stage, and this year we’re working to do the same. It’s important to us.”

Spencer made clear the plan could still change. Asked whether he had thought about bringing Sega’s Yakuza series to Xbox One, he replied: “Yes, Sega has a lot of good franchises that would be cool to see.”

The expectation is understandable. The Yakuza series, called Ryu ga Gotoku in Japan, had until then been PlayStation territory, and for those with only Microsoft’s console there was no way to play Kazuma Kiryu’s stories on the streets of Kamurocho. Microsoft’s presentation was set for June 10, 2018, at 5 PM Brasília time.

What came next

The E3 promise was kept. At the June 10 conference, the Xbox stage had a wave of Japanese games: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, from FromSoftware; Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition, from Bandai Namco; Kingdom Hearts III; Devil May Cry 5, from Capcom; and NieR: Automata, which came to Xbox One.

Yakuza took a little longer, like a tape we waited to hit the rental store. Yakuza 0 arrived on Xbox One on February 26, 2020, Yakuza Kiwami on April 21 and Yakuza Kiwami 2 on July 30. And Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the eighth mainline game, came out on November 10, 2020 as a launch title for the Xbox Series X and Series S, months before the PS5 version, on March 2, 2021.