Some of the stuff that comes up on this website just kills me some days. Every time a story comes up about Japan, and why something isn't selling there, a bunch of posters go on about what a bunch of xenophobic dicks Japanese are and how no western companies can do well there.
To those people: You obviously don't live here, and you should consider the merits of spouting off on things with which you have no direct experience.
I live in Tokyo. I've been here for about 6 years and have worked helping to restructure a well-known Japanese company.
So, on to some random points:
1) Do Japanese have a water-tight sense of national identity?
Yes.
But they are not the only ones with nationalistic issues. See also "We're #1 motherfuckers" in the US and the vague but pervasive smugness of Europeans.
2) Are some Japanese people arrogant, screaming racists?
Yes.
And like there aren't arrogant and screaming racists in the US or Europe... No siree...
This is often thought to be more widespread than it is, partly because foreigners are not always welcome in a number of establishments in Japan. In some cases this is indeed because they are racist.
This is way more often the case because Japanese are not good culturally with dealing with the unfamiliar or strangers, even other Japanese. Letting the foreigner in who doesn't know the right way to behave and will freak out all the patrons is not good business.
They are not totally unjustified in thinking that foreigners will not behave themselves, given the massive number of westerners who come here and act like total dicks, in the same way people are known to act like total dicks when visiting the Amish. I don't know how many times I have had to cringe when reading the news or standing on the train because of the obnoxious behaviour of other gaijin.
All that said, I've seen a little old Japanese guy body-check my friend, for no other apparent reason than he was a Gaijin.
3) Are domestic Japanese businesses insular and hard to do business with?
Yes.
Domestic Japanese companies tend to cluster together in groups, solidified with cross shareholdings. It's often times difficult for Japanese companies to work with other Japanese companies, so don't feel so picked on.
Granted things were waaaaaay worse in the 80's. They used to rebuff ski equipment makes with bullshit excuses like, and I'm not kidding, "Japanese snow is different". It seems that Japan has collectively grown up a little since then.
4) Japanese hate foreign brands. They only want to buy Japanese things.
No.
Here are a list of things that are insanely popular in Japan:
- Starbucks
- Louis Vuitton
- Virtually any European fashion brand
- Krispy Kreme (2 hours lineups just to get one)
- iPod
- McDonalds (there is a word for meeting there)
- Apple products (amongst designers)
- Hollywood movies
- Microsoft software
- Dell hardware
- Cisco routers
- etc etc etc
Do I really need to say anything more?
5) The XBox 360 failed in Japan because of X.
No.
Unless X happens to be the fact that MS massively screwed up the launch in Japan by not having a single game Japanese people wanted to play in the initial line-up. JRPGs, fighting games and simulators of all kinds. That's what they like.
In Microsoft's defence, they have done their best to recover like champs. They obviously went right out and commissioned a bunched of JRPGs, which have all hit in the last 6 months, taking XBox 360 to the top of the hardware charts three times, including this week.
6) Japanese don't buy the iPhone because their phones are super wicked.
Yes and No.
Japanese phones have been waaaaaay ahead for a long time. The phones in the US, until the iPhone and Android have been pretty much a total joke.
Your first paragraph is kind of pointless and you sort of indicated that in the second. The point is that it's $600 spent purely for games on the one hand and $600 spent purely for games on the other, yet people decry one and not the other. It's not very sensible.
And why exactly do people spend $600 on the latest from NVidia and ATI? Don't even try and suggest it's for something other than games. People who don't play games buy $75 video cards or use the on-board. Or they're a professional and buy something like a Quattro.
Ok, I guess we come from different places. Pretty much everyone I know who plays games has a $500+ video card. I figured most techs like games, have good jobs and will spend their money on tech like sweet cards for their games machine. Maybe I'm wrong. But I'll bet you I'm right that the grand percentage of Slashdot folks *want* a $600+ video card and don't see the harm or evil in paying for it, even if they don't choose to do so themselves. I don't think I've every seen a riot around here on the price of some crazy new video card like I'm seeing about the PS3. And $600 is still $600 (unless you buy the *really* crazy $700 video cards).
As for the Blu-Ray player; I agree. I think it's basically been a mistake. But if the format, loathesome and proprietary though it is, does actually manage to catch on in a big way, then having it is a big win for consumers. And for the record, I'm not on anyone's side. I am not a raving fan boy for any one platform. I'll buy whatever platform gets me the games I want.
It may just be a development snapshot and very much unfinished. I hope so too. Apparently it's the same story with Coded Arms (i.e. a dev version). None of that was clear at the show. I have to wonder why they chose to display their wares in this way... Not a good impression.
Sure. Basically it comes down to frame rate and detail. A number of the heavier 360 games can't always maintain their frame rates and also don't look as good as the PS3 games. MotorStorm is a great example of this. It has incredible detail and great backgrounds as well as solid effects all around. And not a single frame lost that I could see. Not even when things got hairy. Everything pretty much looks like a cutscene...
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the 360. Realistically, if the games end up being better (in terms of gameplay and not graphics) on the 360 then that's the way to go. It's still early in and who knows how the platforms will develop, but as it stands, the PS3 appears to be the more technically advanced platform, but also for twice the price (clearly all the budget for which is not soley spent (squandered?) on the Blu-Ray drive).
On the sales front, ya, the 360 is dead in Japan. But to their credit MS is giving it the old college try. They had a huge booth and I heard they are planning to re-release (3rd time?) with a new Akira Toriyama (Mr. Dragonball) game, whose name escapes me at the moment (Dragon Quest Blue maybe).
What gets me is that everyone here is screaming to high heaven about the price of this full on, and really quite nifty game console/Blu-Ray player (that last bit may or may not end up being a good thing) when I'd be willing to bet the grand percentage of them have $600 video cards in their Windows game PCs.
So an expensive video card is ok, but a game system chock full over cool goodies (Cell, Blu-Ray, Graphics Cars, Linux) is totally unreasonable?
And BTW, if $600 looks like the 'GDP of a small country' to you, I suggest getting another job. Clearly your employer is paying you the Indian wages, rather than the going British salary.
I was at TGS today and saw a whack of HD demos at the Sony booth. You're right in terms of looking good. Afrika looked great. In fact it was one of the best games there. Another really impressive one was Shirokishi and Motorstorm looks to be a contender for nicest overall presentation. Devil May Cry 4 didn't look too hot and there were a lot of forgettable demos, although Mina no Golf looked like a lot of fun with solid production values.
What was *not* cool was MGS4. It was a major letdown. Yes, it was nicely presented in the same way one might put tripe into a fancy gift box. The in-game graphic quality has dropped down a sizable notch from previous demos. And the animation... Everything was very robotic and very unnatural; totally unlike the two previous movies.
For example, firing a gun has literally two key frames. Normal position and recoiled position. There weren't even any in-between frames. He just fired his gun, snapping forward and back jerkily between the two positions. Not smooth or natural at all. It was a big, big, letdown.
A lot of games were available to play, but MGS4 (unsurprisingly given the movie) did not appear to be among them. Speaking of missing games, there was not even so much as a whiff of Assassin's Creed, which was really too bad as I was looking forward to seeing it. Maybe tomorrow...
But the ***HUGE*** loser of the day was the PS3's new Coded Arms game. They have really, really screwed it up. I was watching it for some time in quite some disbelief as I literally saw framerates drop below 5 per second. Like maybe 1 per second. Really. And that kind of stuttering was pretty regular. An unmitigated disaster by all appearances. I'm really hoping I'm mistaken and this is some low budget PS2 version.
Overall, the PS3 beats out the XBox 360 on all accounts. What the XBox struggles to do, the PS3 does easily. Not only was that my impression, but also the opinion of all of the industry folk I spoke to.
Slashdot Mirror
Some of the stuff that comes up on this website just kills me some days. Every time a story comes up about Japan, and why something isn't selling there, a bunch of posters go on about what a bunch of xenophobic dicks Japanese are and how no western companies can do well there.
To those people: You obviously don't live here, and you should consider the merits of spouting off on things with which you have no direct experience.
I live in Tokyo. I've been here for about 6 years and have worked helping to restructure a well-known Japanese company.
So, on to some random points:
1) Do Japanese have a water-tight sense of national identity?
Yes.
But they are not the only ones with nationalistic issues. See also "We're #1 motherfuckers" in the US and the vague but pervasive smugness of Europeans.
2) Are some Japanese people arrogant, screaming racists?
Yes.
And like there aren't arrogant and screaming racists in the US or Europe... No siree...
This is often thought to be more widespread than it is, partly because foreigners are not always welcome in a number of establishments in Japan. In some cases this is indeed because they are racist.
This is way more often the case because Japanese are not good culturally with dealing with the unfamiliar or strangers, even other Japanese. Letting the foreigner in who doesn't know the right way to behave and will freak out all the patrons is not good business.
They are not totally unjustified in thinking that foreigners will not behave themselves, given the massive number of westerners who come here and act like total dicks, in the same way people are known to act like total dicks when visiting the Amish. I don't know how many times I have had to cringe when reading the news or standing on the train because of the obnoxious behaviour of other gaijin.
All that said, I've seen a little old Japanese guy body-check my friend, for no other apparent reason than he was a Gaijin.
3) Are domestic Japanese businesses insular and hard to do business with?
Yes.
Domestic Japanese companies tend to cluster together in groups, solidified with cross shareholdings. It's often times difficult for Japanese companies to work with other Japanese companies, so don't feel so picked on.
Granted things were waaaaaay worse in the 80's. They used to rebuff ski equipment makes with bullshit excuses like, and I'm not kidding, "Japanese snow is different". It seems that Japan has collectively grown up a little since then.
4) Japanese hate foreign brands. They only want to buy Japanese things.
No.
Here are a list of things that are insanely popular in Japan:
- Starbucks
- Louis Vuitton
- Virtually any European fashion brand
- Krispy Kreme (2 hours lineups just to get one)
- iPod
- McDonalds (there is a word for meeting there)
- Apple products (amongst designers)
- Hollywood movies
- Microsoft software
- Dell hardware
- Cisco routers
- etc etc etc
Do I really need to say anything more?
5) The XBox 360 failed in Japan because of X.
No.
Unless X happens to be the fact that MS massively screwed up the launch in Japan by not having a single game Japanese people wanted to play in the initial line-up. JRPGs, fighting games and simulators of all kinds. That's what they like.
In Microsoft's defence, they have done their best to recover like champs. They obviously went right out and commissioned a bunched of JRPGs, which have all hit in the last 6 months, taking XBox 360 to the top of the hardware charts three times, including this week.
6) Japanese don't buy the iPhone because their phones are super wicked.
Yes and No.
Japanese phones have been waaaaaay ahead for a long time. The phones in the US, until the iPhone and Android have been pretty much a total joke.
That said, the
Your first paragraph is kind of pointless and you sort of indicated that in the second. The point is that it's $600 spent purely for games on the one hand and $600 spent purely for games on the other, yet people decry one and not the other. It's not very sensible.
And why exactly do people spend $600 on the latest from NVidia and ATI? Don't even try and suggest it's for something other than games. People who don't play games buy $75 video cards or use the on-board. Or they're a professional and buy something like a Quattro.
Ok, I guess we come from different places. Pretty much everyone I know who plays games has a $500+ video card. I figured most techs like games, have good jobs and will spend their money on tech like sweet cards for their games machine. Maybe I'm wrong. But I'll bet you I'm right that the grand percentage of Slashdot folks *want* a $600+ video card and don't see the harm or evil in paying for it, even if they don't choose to do so themselves. I don't think I've every seen a riot around here on the price of some crazy new video card like I'm seeing about the PS3. And $600 is still $600 (unless you buy the *really* crazy $700 video cards).
As for the Blu-Ray player; I agree. I think it's basically been a mistake. But if the format, loathesome and proprietary though it is, does actually manage to catch on in a big way, then having it is a big win for consumers. And for the record, I'm not on anyone's side. I am not a raving fan boy for any one platform. I'll buy whatever platform gets me the games I want.
It may just be a development snapshot and very much unfinished. I hope so too. Apparently it's the same story with Coded Arms (i.e. a dev version). None of that was clear at the show. I have to wonder why they chose to display their wares in this way... Not a good impression.
Sure. Basically it comes down to frame rate and detail. A number of the heavier 360 games can't always maintain their frame rates and also don't look as good as the PS3 games. MotorStorm is a great example of this. It has incredible detail and great backgrounds as well as solid effects all around. And not a single frame lost that I could see. Not even when things got hairy. Everything pretty much looks like a cutscene...
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the 360. Realistically, if the games end up being better (in terms of gameplay and not graphics) on the 360 then that's the way to go. It's still early in and who knows how the platforms will develop, but as it stands, the PS3 appears to be the more technically advanced platform, but also for twice the price (clearly all the budget for which is not soley spent (squandered?) on the Blu-Ray drive).
On the sales front, ya, the 360 is dead in Japan. But to their credit MS is giving it the old college try. They had a huge booth and I heard they are planning to re-release (3rd time?) with a new Akira Toriyama (Mr. Dragonball) game, whose name escapes me at the moment (Dragon Quest Blue maybe).
What gets me is that everyone here is screaming to high heaven about the price of this full on, and really quite nifty game console/Blu-Ray player (that last bit may or may not end up being a good thing) when I'd be willing to bet the grand percentage of them have $600 video cards in their Windows game PCs.
So an expensive video card is ok, but a game system chock full over cool goodies (Cell, Blu-Ray, Graphics Cars, Linux) is totally unreasonable?
And BTW, if $600 looks like the 'GDP of a small country' to you, I suggest getting another job. Clearly your employer is paying you the Indian wages, rather than the going British salary.
I was at TGS today and saw a whack of HD demos at the Sony booth. You're right in terms of looking good. Afrika looked great. In fact it was one of the best games there. Another really impressive one was Shirokishi and Motorstorm looks to be a contender for nicest overall presentation. Devil May Cry 4 didn't look too hot and there were a lot of forgettable demos, although Mina no Golf looked like a lot of fun with solid production values.
What was *not* cool was MGS4. It was a major letdown. Yes, it was nicely presented in the same way one might put tripe into a fancy gift box. The in-game graphic quality has dropped down a sizable notch from previous demos. And the animation... Everything was very robotic and very unnatural; totally unlike the two previous movies.
For example, firing a gun has literally two key frames. Normal position and recoiled position. There weren't even any in-between frames. He just fired his gun, snapping forward and back jerkily between the two positions. Not smooth or natural at all. It was a big, big, letdown.
A lot of games were available to play, but MGS4 (unsurprisingly given the movie) did not appear to be among them. Speaking of missing games, there was not even so much as a whiff of Assassin's Creed, which was really too bad as I was looking forward to seeing it. Maybe tomorrow...
But the ***HUGE*** loser of the day was the PS3's new Coded Arms game. They have really, really screwed it up. I was watching it for some time in quite some disbelief as I literally saw framerates drop below 5 per second. Like maybe 1 per second. Really. And that kind of stuttering was pretty regular. An unmitigated disaster by all appearances. I'm really hoping I'm mistaken and this is some low budget PS2 version.
Overall, the PS3 beats out the XBox 360 on all accounts. What the XBox struggles to do, the PS3 does easily. Not only was that my impression, but also the opinion of all of the industry folk I spoke to.
Enough to save them? Only time will tell...