Why Japan Gets the Cool Stuff

haahr writes "Good article about why the coolest electronics products are available first in Japan and may never make it to the U.S., in Slate."

Comments

Left one out

[The Cat]

Japanese companies keep their staff employed for more than six months at a time.

A minor point, but meetings don't make money, and middle managers don't build products.

Re:Isn't it obvious?

[Deadstick]

Eons ago I read an article in a photo magazine, relating the author's tour of the Nikon factory. He remarked to the company honcho that of all features on a camera, the self-timer (the gadget that lets you photograph yourself) is the least likely ever to be used, and yet every Japanese camera has one...why was that?

The company guy responded by driving him past the Yasukuni Shrine, a war memorial that corresponds roughly to the Tomb Of The Unknowns. In front of it stood an army of tourist families smiling cheerfully at an army of tripods manned by an army of phantom photographers. "In Japan," he said, "No self-timer, no sell camera."

rj

Well....

[ImaLamer]

First like they say in Crazy People they are closer to the chips.

Actually it's a big question. We are afraid to test the waters and move forward. While we pioneered these technologies Japan will put a semiconductor in anything - at least once.

America is quite like the fall of the Victorian Empire. She has become a nation afraid of progress and if something doesn't change she won't stay towards the top of the heap.

Off-topic, somewhat:

Space could provide a new rain of resources, or it could bankrupt us. But its habitation does offer two other advantages.
The first: internation cooperation. No single nation can afford the price of extraterrestial development. To turn the wastelands of asteroids and planets into lands of plenty would involve consortia including Russia, Europe, and Japan. Those partnerships are already under development, though too often we are not involved in them. ... ... ...
-Howard Bloom, The Lucifer Principle (Chapter:Tennis Time And The Mental Clock)

There is more, that is actually on topic, but I can't find the page now. I don't want to misquote either. Basically we pioneered that technology, invented the PC but the majority of parts aren't even made here - and I don't mean assembly - I mean the companies who own the RAM factories etc.

This is just a preview of things to come.

Re:Don't pay sales tax when shopping in Akihabara

[BJH]

No, the DVD Consortium organized it that way so that Japanese consumers would not be able to play cheap imports from Taiwan and Hong Kong on their Region 2 players.

Re:Balderdash

[jidar]

Hah! If you stopped patting yourself on the back long enough you might realize that your argument only works if Japan and the US are seperate entities that make their own items and don't export to each other. It's a global market and how things are manufactured in Japan as compared to the US has nothign at all to do with what is available on our market since anything they make they can sell here if there is a market for it.
The reason Japan has those things and we don't is exactly like the man said, they don't export it to the US because we wouldn't buy it. :P