The game is in hand: Japanese developers bring their legendary craftsmanship to new Xbox devices
When Xbox debuted in 2001, it was a newcomer to a scene dominated by Japanese-made games and consoles. At that time, Sega, Nintendo and Sony were household names to anyone who’d ever touched a joystick or controller.
Xbox would eventually catch up and become a household name along with those pioneering giants, but Japan’s influence – through famous games and franchises such as Final Fantasy and Ninja Gaiden – endures. And now, through years of partnership with companies based in the country, Xbox has embraced their influence and helped bring them to broader audiences.
Japanese game developers have continued to create vivid experiences for players even as their preferences about how they play have evolved: from consoles and PCs to more recently the cloud and now, the newest handheld devices.
Naoki Hamaguchi, studio head for creative at Square Enix, one of Japan’s most well-known game studios, has been part of the gaming industry for 24 years. He started as a programmer and is now the director for the Final Fantasy remake trilogy project, a reimagining of the 1997 Final Fantasy VII game, with the first entry coming to Xbox on Jan. 22, 2026.
“I was one of those children who played Final Fantasy and thought, someday I’d like to create a world like this and offer this kind of digital entertainment to more people,” he says. “This greatly inspired me to become a game creator. And so being involved in developing this series now is deeply meaningful to me personally.”
Craftmanship that stands out
An enduring legacy of Japanese game development is its attention to detail, which will continue to make these games stand out as they reach new players, says Mena Kato, managing director of Xbox Asia Partnerships.
“The way they’ve created their games is very unique. It fits right into their culture of craftsmanship. It’s very detailed. It’s not something you produce in a factory,” says Kato, who previously held leadership roles at Sony Interactive Entertainment.
“When you see a catalog of games, you can almost identify a Japanese developer because you see those touches there. I love the fact that when I talk to partners, their deep history and confidence in building this industry have been great. The love and passion have been here for ages and continues.”
It’s a mindset that’s embedded in Xbox’s partners in Japan, where developers are just as thoughtful with storytelling as they are with crafting the animation that makes their games so distinctive.
“I believe Final Fantasy is a series that has significantly contributed to establishing this RPG (role playing game) genre within Japan,” Hamaguchi says. “And particularly the emotionally resonant storytelling, depth of world building and compelling characters have influenced countless developers, both domestically and internationally.”
The original Final Fantasy VII wove themes of life and death, environmentalism and self-discovery amidst a dystopian world dominated by an electric company exploiting the planet’s life force for profit.
Overseeing a game that will be available to more players is also a source of creative motivation, says Hamaguchi. “It presents this challenge of what can we achieve with these specs and then creatively, it sparks this question: What unique experiences can this [new] device offer?”
New devices for a new era
Those devices are the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X – made in partnership with ASUS, Windows and AMD – introduced in June and available Oct. 16.
They run on Windows 11, which will feel familiar to PC gamers who are used to downloading games from their favorite storefronts, running apps like Discord, watching favorite streamers on Twitch and trying out mods (modified versions of games crafted by other players).
Playing on something significantly smaller than a laptop gives players even more freedom to catch up on games they may have started on a PC or console.
The ROG Xbox Ally handhelds are the latest addition to Xbox Play Anywhere. A user pays for a game once and can then pick up play on supported devices.
“Handheld devices like the ROG Xbox Ally deliver a wider reach as something that takes the console and PC experience further in a portable way,” says Kato. “Developers don’t have to create a specific version for it. It’s actually what is on your TV or on your bigger screens, but it’s going to be on a handheld that you can take out and play.”
A natural convergence
Partners like Square Enix recognize the potential reach of the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, which will allow them to design games that aren’t limited to a certain environment or to one set of users. Being flexible and having options is always going to be a benefit to players, Hamaguchi says.
“And for us as a company as well, this is completely in line with our multi-platform strategy,” he says. “I sense something of a natural convergence or synchronicity in the direction that both of the companies are pursuing.”
Adds Hiroshi Takai, main director for Final Fantasy XVI, also at Square Enix: “As Final Fantasy XVI was originally designed with a specific piece of hardware in mind, it wasn’t until we later began work on the Windows PC version – and optimizing the game for a variety of unique hardware environments – that the doors to porting the game to other platforms (handhelds included) opened to us.”
For Team NINJA, another Japanese game developer known for its Ninja Gaiden series at Koei Tecmo Games, the appeal of new audiences and playing styles presents another opportunity to deliver the high-quality artwork and gameplay the country’s studios are known for.
Fumihiko Yasuda, head of Team NINJA and Ninja Gaiden 4 producer at Koei Tecmo Games, recognizes that players using smart devices and gaming PCs are increasing in Japan, which he says aligns with global trends.
“In Western markets the number of players using Steam Deck and remote play is growing, and we want to support those play styles,” he says, referring to another handheld gaming device.
“While we don’t wish for hardware differences to drastically change the core gameplay experience, the ROG Xbox Ally allows players to enjoy NINJA GAIDEN at high frame rates, which we believe will appeal not only to longtime fans of the series but also to new players,” Yasuda says.
High frame rates translate to smoother gameplay (less motion blur as characters and environments move more naturally), better responsiveness (players value physical button pushing reflected in real-time on the screen) and enhanced visual clarity (images on-screen appear sharper and look more stable).
Bringing games to more players
While Team NINJA/Koei Tecmo Games and Square Enix have fully autonomous editorial and creative authority over their titles, Xbox helps them bring those titles to the Xbox ecosystem through engineering support. They also help them in other ways.
“From the early stages of development on Ninja Gaiden 4, the Xbox team has provided us with tremendous long-term support, for which we are very grateful,” Yasuda says. “In addition to platform-related aspects, we’ve had in-depth discussions regarding marketing suited to the title’s characteristics and designing accessibility features to ensure a wider range of players can enjoy the game. We received a lot of valuable advice based on their global player insights.”
That level of exposure and support is also valuable to smaller game studios in Japan, such as Pocketpair, which produces games like Palworld and Craftopia.
“There are so many players who love the games who we couldn’t reach before we got on Game Pass,” says Takuro Mizobe, Pocketpair’s CEO. With Xbox Game Pass plans, players can access hundreds of Xbox games for one monthly fee. “Now more than 10 million players play Palworld through it.”
He and Xbox’s other partners are hopeful that the new handhelds will bring new players and audiences.
“To be able to enable and empower players to play anywhere is just really important,” says Xbox’s Kato. “We’re opening the ecosystem. Consoles are still an important part of our business, but we’re opening the gates.”