According to a new job listing on the Microsoft career page, it appears that a new Xbox division is being created to handle Asian markets. The Xbox brand has always floundered in Asian markets when compared to Japan native Sony and Nintendo. Over the years Microsoft has tried breaking this stranglehold with various methods including an exclusive 3 game deal with, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s, Mistwalker Corporation. In the end the last of these 3 games would be cancelled and the Xbox brand was no better off in the territory than before. The purpose of this new division is to develop the Xbox brand and new partnerships in Asian markets.

The Microsoft Global Gaming Partnership & Development team (GGPD) is looking for a knowledgeable, experienced, and energetic leader to lead partnership and business development in Japan, China, and South Korea to make Microsoft the global leader in Gaming.

 As Sr. Director, Global Gaming Partnerships and Development across the Asia region, you will work with other business development leads, finance and legal teams to source, develop and manage key partnerships to support Microsoft’s strategic gaming initiatives including Xbox One, Mixer, Game Pass and Gaming Cloud. You will collaborate closely with engineering and marketing teams and lead local resources to advance the Microsoft presence in these key markets. You will also be asked to assist in creating strategies for new gaming-related services and/or business models that will drive revenue and user growth across all gaming platforms, including, but not limited to, subscriptions, streaming, and mobile.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement strategic engagement models that achieve business opportunities from the largest customers and partners, manage the customer and partner interface, and provide deal structure in order to close complex deals with simplicity and sophistication

• Drive plans for managing deals with targeted strategies, prioritization, and implementation of communications and reporting

• Manage on-going partnerships and relationships with developers, publishers and industry executives – is the senior representative for gaming in the region

• Manage publishing and partnership services for regional partners, including release management and level-1 technical support for partners leveraging our Gaming platforms

• Identify, evaluate, and prioritize organic and inorganic opportunities in support of the broader partner strategy including developing the business case for a partnership (strategic rationales and economics), creatively structuring deal terms, and developing a negotiation strategy and leading negotiations

• Leverage market intelligence and data from internal and external sources to develop insights and recommendations for creating growth opportunities for our gaming business and exploring new business models

• Collaborate with stakeholders across the company (engineering, planning, strategy, marketing, sales, support, finance, and legal) in development of business and product strategy, translate business and product strategy into an ecosystem strategy, and identify and architect in-organic opportunities that can drive significant new businesses for Microsoft

• Lead a regional, distributed team to achieve business objectives at an accelerated pace

I for one would love to see a bigger Xbox presence in Asian markets as competition has always led to innovation. Hopefully a concentrated effort will finally help the Xbox brand see more of a presence in the region.