It seems that Microsoft is looking to create a new Xbox Asia Division dedicated to seeking partnerships, opportunities and relationships in Japan and Asia.

　　At least, that’s what can be discerned from recent job listings on Microsoft’s career page. According to the job descriptions, the purpose of this new regional team is to close agreements with potential partners.

　　“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”, the description reads.

　　“As a leader 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 sophisticationDrive plans for managing deals with targeted strategies, prioritization, and implementation of communications and reportingManage on-going partnerships and relationships with developers, publishers and industry executives – is the senior representative for gaming in the regionManage publishing and partnership services for regional partners, including release management and level-1 technical support for partners leveraging our Gaming platformsIdentify, 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 negotiationsLeverage 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 modelsCollaborate 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 MicrosoftLead a regional, distributed team to achieve business objectives at an accelerated paceAlthough Xbox head Phil Spencer has visited Asia on various occasions, Microsoft hasn’t been able to gain decent traction in both Japan and Asia. Let’s hope that this new team will be able to succeed in gaining more presence the East.