This paper talks about the turning point of Microsoft's game strategy around the masterpiece Blue Dragon in X360 era.
At present, Microsoft's performance in the next generation war of game consoles can be described as "Buddhism". Although the paper data of the next-generation console XBOX sreies is still strong, Microsoft's propaganda performance for the next-generation war is no longer as aggressive as the XBOX and XBOX360 era. Now Microsoft emphasizes the game "* * * enjoyment" rather than monopoly. This is completely different from Microsoft's practice of spending money everywhere to buy exclusive works and investing huge sums of money in research and development of exclusive works when it first set foot in the game industry.
What makes Microsoft change so much? The key turning point occurred before and after the Blue Dragon Project. It can be said that Blue Dragon's performance has fundamentally changed Microsoft's thinking in the game industry.
In 2005, Microsoft X360 was successfully released. With the convenient development environment and the enthusiasm of many manufacturers, X360 has passed the primary stage of mainframe after nearly 1 year of sales. At the E3 exhibition, the exclusive masterpiece "War Machine" was a blockbuster and won favorable comments. With the super-high completion of the real machine screen of War Machine and the trailer offensive of Halo 3, Microsoft vaguely feels that the grand blueprint of dominating the host industry is coming.
In contrast, Sony's situation is extremely delicate. Different from X360, Sony King's next-generation trump card, PS3, is still in a state of hiding half of its face behind the guitar, while E3 can only show you gorgeous "radio" games. Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the development progress of PS3, whether it is a real machine or a game, is far from the final release stage.
The actual situation is far less than what players see. PS3' s weird CELL processor and architecture make many manufacturers either have no money to invest in the PS2 platform or have no technical strength to develop the expected next generation level game. Japanese manufacturers are almost helpless in the face of the next generation of difficulties. In addition to the software crisis, the key equipment of PS3, equipped with blue light, has a high cost due to low production yield. Even so, there is no guarantee of sufficient quantity. As a result, in the commercial war at the end of 2006, PS3 could not provide enough PS3 to meet the needs of players.
For a time, the Sony lineup that looked like an iron bucket showed signs of avalanche, much like Nintendo of 1996.
The so-called high spirits, and then decline, three and exhausted. Microsoft, which seized the opportunity, was ready to launch a general attack to defeat Sony in one fell swoop, and the location of the general attack was chosen in Japan.
Microsoft, a newcomer to the industry, experienced the failure of XBOX, and by the X360 era, it was already an old hand. He launched a general attack on Sony, regardless of strategy, timing and means.
The first is strategy. It is very appropriate for Microsoft to choose Japan as the decisive battle site. To realize the dream of dominating the world, Japan's local game market is a fortress that must be conquered. Unlike X360' s smooth sailing in other markets around the world, especially in Europe and America, the Japanese market is as indifferent to X360 as ever. After experiencing the prosperity in the 1990s and the continuation at the turn of the century, Japan's game industry gradually declined. By 2005, Japan's game market has fallen from more than half of the global market at its peak to less than 30%, and it is still going down.
But after all, the thin camel is bigger than the horse, and the game hardware standard was still in Japan. The classic IP, mature production system and innovative ideas accumulated in the previous market have continuously injected vitality into the Japanese game industry. To dominate the world, without the Japanese market, it can only be a broken overlord, which is not enough to shake the foundation of the game industry. Therefore, there is no problem for Microsoft to choose the strategic thinking of decisive battle in the Japanese market.
What about the timing? The first part of this article has been analyzed, which is very appropriate. After all, if you want to challenge the overlord, you can only be killed if your opponent is stronger than Ma Zhuang. At this time, Sony's situation is in jeopardy. Nintendo has been surpassed by Microsoft in the war of the previous generation, so Microsoft chose the right time to attack at the turn of generations.
What about the way? Microsoft chose to focus on RPG. In the Japanese game market, only the RPG king can sit on the throne of the host king. Even if it is as powerful as Nintendo, it can't reach the top again after losing the exclusive rights of Final Fantasy and enter the dragon. This is the market reality.
Just take the exclusive rights of Final Fantasy and enter the dragon. The problem is that the idea and business model of Japanese manufacturers determine that Microsoft can't achieve the above goals at all. As Bach, one of Microsoft XBOX developers, said: "Japanese manufacturers are always very sensitive. Their relationship with Sony is as bad as that between Microsoft and other windows software developers. I heard that Sony will retaliate against disloyal game developers, and Japanese manufacturers are very worried that they will become early birds. " Invisible pressure makes Japanese manufacturers afraid to support Microsoft easily. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Tomonobu Itagaki's Tekmo, a madman, and Tomonobu Itagaki, a talented and wild gamer with clear pleasure, love and hate. There is also Capcom, commonly known as the card label. But in general, Japanese manufacturers are cautious and extremely conservative to Microsoft.
As early as 2000, when Microsoft decided to join the game console war, Microsoft learned the cruelty of the Japanese market. After attending the Tokyo Game Show, the XBOX marketing team invited Suzuki, then president of SQUARE, to a bar to drink and cultivate feelings. After drinking too much, the Microsoft team called Sony Kudo Yoshiki Hayashi and asked Kudo what he thought of XBOX. Kudo Yoshiki Hayashi congratulated him naturally and politely. However, Suzuki was stunned by this sudden event, and his face became livid and his expression became extremely serious. He immediately asked the XBOX team never to reveal the private contact between SQUARE and Microsoft.
Microsoft understands that wooing a third party to develop exclusive games for XBOX is not worth the loss. Therefore, when X360 was released, Microsoft decided to spend a lot of money to create its own exclusive RPG works. The biggest breakthrough is the blue dragon, whose imitation object is the famous king game-"The Brave Fight the Dragon". Just copy the medicine and reproduce it.
The significance of "Blue Dragon" has gone beyond the scope of general game production and distribution profit, and has become a key weapon for Microsoft to incite the Japanese market, and even further attract third-party manufacturers, ultimately affecting the direction of the console war.
When "Blue Dragon" just released the news, familiar players found that the path of "Blue Dragon" was almost exactly the same as that of "The Brave Fight the Dragon". "The Brave Fight the Dragon" is said to be an iron triangle, namely, Yuji Kawai and Yi, who are responsible for script, personnel design and music respectively. The development history of "The Brave Fight the Dragon" series for decades, no matter how advanced the technology is and how the production team changes, the soul trio of the series has never changed. This super stable structure ensures the essence and soul of the series. In addition, the cooperation with the Japanese comic magazine "Youth Leap" and the comic style of Toriyama Akira's simple lines have made "The Brave Fight the Dragon" stand out from many games and become a heavyweight work with weather vane significance in the game industry.
"Blue Dragon" chose the famous producer+Toriyama Akira's original painting+Youth Jump +RPG's masterpiece development mode.
Although Microsoft can't convince SQUARE to join Microsoft, it can find a production king comparable to Yuji Horai. That's Sakaguchi Hironobu, the super producer who left SQUARE to make the Final Fantasy series. In order to persuade Sakaguchi Hironobu to develop games for him, Microsoft staged a modern version of "Three Visits to the Cottage". First of all, Jiahao Maruyama, the head of Japanese XBOX department, personally went to Hawaii and visited Sakaguchi Hironobu's home. Then, Peter Moore, then the head of Microsoft XBOX, followed closely, and finally Redmer of Microsoft. Microsoft invited Zhuge Liang to move Sakaguchi Hironobu. Moreover, Microsoft specially recruited former colleagues from Sakaguchi Hironobu who have merged into SQUARE ENIX to create a perfect working environment for Sakaguchi Hironobu.
Sakaguchi Hironobu got enough financial support to recreate a final fantasy, and then Sakaguchi Hironobu persuaded another solo king, Nobuo Uematsu. Nobuo uematsu, who created many classic music of Final Fantasy, joined in the production, making the game music no less than Shan Hao I.
Toriyama Akira's joining is the key link for Blue Dragon to truly own the Microsoft version of Dragon. With abundant financial resources, Microsoft persuaded Toriyama Akira, who had been lazy, to join. From this point of view, the blue dragon is no different from the brave fighting the dragon, whether it is internal temperament or external performance. The last time there was such a fantastic production lineup, except for the Dragon Fight series, there was only SFC's super masterpiece "The Key to Time and Space".
Blue Dragon chose to cooperate with "Youth Leap" for publicity, which is also the experience of the brave fighting against the dragon.
How much did Microsoft invest in such a work? I don't know, but what is certain is that it is far superior to X360' s other exclusive masterpiece War Machine. And how many target sales did Microsoft set for Blue Dragon? Only 250 thousand sets. Don't say that compared with "War Machine" and "The Brave Fight the Dragon", the sales volume of this game is quite poor compared with ordinary games.
However, this is the conclusion reached by Microsoft after an in-depth analysis of the Japanese market structure. It should be said that Microsoft has thoroughly analyzed what it can think of and what it can foresee. This time, Microsoft is very pragmatic. Blue Dragon is used to brand and occupy a venue, and it is used to make friends with players!
Is the blue dragon of excellent quality? There is no doubt about it. Within one week after listing, the sales volume of Blue Dragon reached nearly 90,000 sets, which is undoubtedly a very good result for X360 in trouble. It not only won extensive media attention, but also promoted X360 sales to exceed 10 times, creating the most brilliant achievement after X360 entered the Japanese market. The final sales volume also reached more than 200,000 sets, not only the players responded positively, but also Microsoft was very satisfied with the expectations.
Around Blue Dragon, Microsoft not only launched games, but also launched cartoons and animations with the theme of Blue Dragon, and even launched Blue Dragon plus on rival NDS for the first time. In order to cultivate the brand of Blue Dragon, Microsoft has spared no effort in all-round and multi-level coverage.
"Blue Dragon" project is a strategic trump card carefully cultivated by Microsoft in order to enter the Japanese market and build a localized brand. In order to compete with "The Brave Fight the Dragon", Microsoft almost exhausted all means. But in the end, X360 lost to Sony, which had recovered from the poisonous gas. In the later period, Microsoft almost gave up the whole Japanese market.
With the fading of the "Blue Dragon" craze, Microsoft was forced to adjust its traditional thinking of monopolizing the ace RPG and compete with its competitors. Monopoly games are no longer placed in an important position in Microsoft's game console strategy. At the end of X360, we saw wave after wave of monopoly masterpieces of PS3, but X360 rarely appeared monopoly games, and this situation continues to this day. Microsoft abandoned the basic strategy of monopolizing masterpieces and occupying the game market, and instead advocated breaking equipment barriers, integrating game distribution channels, and using its own system games on the PC side to attract players to wander between game consoles and PC platforms. The extravagant hope of occupying the Japanese market, since the Japanese RPG masterpiece represented by "Blue Dragon" failed, Microsoft has no intention.
On the one hand, the Japanese game market continues to shrink and disappear, and now the Japanese game market is less than 10% of the global market. On the other hand, Microsoft does not have the strength to compete with local manufacturers such as Sony Nintendo, so it has to be like this.
To sum up, it can be seen that the success or failure of Blue Dragon directly determines the strategic choice of Microsoft's game business, which has nothing to do with the fun and quality of Blue Dragon, but Blue Dragon is indeed a good game.