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The 360's Japanese Status Revisited
Next Generation is reporting on more elements of the Xbox 360's presence in Japan. From the corporate side of things, the head of the Xbox division in Japan can be referred to as vaguely pessimistic. From the article: "Two RPGs from such a prolific fellow as Sakaguchi may strike a chord in Japan, but Microsoft will have to pull out even more tricks with the impending launch of the Wii and PS3, both of which Japan gamers favor over the Xbox brand. Right now, the Xbox 360 can't even make any headway sans next-gen competition. 'Globally we are doing very well but Japan has always been tough,' Huston admitted. 'We launched early and with not enough Japan-specific content.'" They're also running an article looking deeper into the situation, an examination from an outsider's perspective. From that article: "Mr. Huston has also commented that the 360 'launched early,' which is true in many senses of the word -- they launched before all their competitors, they launched early into the popularity of high-definition televisions in Japan, and they launched earlier than any good games. It was widely believed by Microsoft Japan that Dead or Alive 4 would save the system at launch, though really, how naive is that?"
Your just flipping the discrimination around and positively discriminating based on the idea that the X-Box360 is crap, and the Japanese are far superior to everyone else at determining what is good and bad in technology.
Thats as much crap as any cultural examination the previous poster made.
I believe both of you are wrong. The first poster indicated his judgement is based on the fact the Japanese dislike America and therefore American products. You are suggesting the Japanese are superior in there judgements altogether. I do think the Japanese may have some animosity to America but then so do huge chunks of the whole world, including my own country, 360's doing fine here. Its far more likely that the Japanese market is simply a different one. Not better, not worse, just different. All of the games and marketing were not made for this different market. Thats why they failed.
The japanese clearly have a style and genre set they prefer, just like everyone else does. MS didnt cater for it and now they have a hell of an uphill struggle.