An energetic 41-year-old, Mr. [Pat Ohura] joined Microsoft Japan in 1986 and rose by jumping into new businesses. When Microsoft set out to conquer Japan's PC-software market in the mid-1990s, Mr. Ohura quickly overcame a chief rival and spread Microsoft Word across Japan. When Microsoft announced the Xbox project in early 2000, friends warned him the Xbox job was too risky. He acknowledges that he "didn't know much about the game industry."
He soon realized the Japanese were skeptical of Microsoft's plans. Several star creators were cool to the Xbox. Some thought the machine -- which includes a hard drive and runs on an Intel Corp. processor -- was too much like a PC and thus not much fun. One game maker told Mr. Ohura that even if Microsoft offered financial terms as attractive as Sony's, he would refuse to create an Xbox game, because Microsoft isn't Japanese.
A year later, Mr. [Isao Okawa] was battling cancer and handed the reins at Sega to a protege, Tetsu Kayama. In late January 2001, Microsoft executives visited Sega headquarters in Tokyo, where Robbie Bach, the head of Microsoft's Xbox unit, sketched out a proposal on a white board: Microsoft would invest in ailing Sega, in exchange for Sega's creating exclusive Xbox games