"You could get good DVD players (Panasonic brand) in $150 in late 2000."
Perhaps in America. Not here in Japan. The PS2 was cheaper than the cheapest DVD player, and I know two people with absolutely no interest in games who bought it exclusively as a cheapish DVD player.
First, while I don't have access to government officials, I'm pretty certain that, were I to ask one "Is Japanese nationalism (or outright racism, as some would call it) much more pervasive than anything in the U.S?", they would almost certainly answer "No". As such, when you tell me to "ask the Japanese government", you're pointing me at a "No" answer, so I take it you agree with me?
Also, an aside: Japan doesn't "venerate" cannibalistic serial killers. There was one cannibalistic killer, Issei Sagawa, who avoided prison and made the TV circuit, but he was neither a serial killer, nor was he venerated. And Japan's most popular pornography series is not named "Rapeman". There was a comic by that name, but it's probably more well known by Americans (due to the Steve Albini band of the same name) than in Japan. Japan's most popular porn series is probably the Max Cafe series or some other generic woman-has-ordinary-sex-with-man series.
However, I digress: Neither Issei nor Rapeman have much to do with nationalism, and even less to do with why the XBox 360 is not having stellar sales.
Japanese nationalism (or outright racism, as some would call it) is much more pervasive than anything in the U.S...Just ask the Chinese of Koreans.
Ah, yes, nothing like checking with an unbiased reference.
Americans, while less racist than Japanese, are far more evil and more likely to kill babies and drink their blood just for fun. Just ask the North Koreans.
Well, if you wanted me to go really in depth, what I would have said was "Japanese love quality products, and tend to give companies the benefit of the doubt if they have good track records, even if the good part of the track record is so old that it should probably be ignored by now". Sony made great stuff a decade or more ago. They still do, in some fields. In other fields, they make products that break annoyingly all the damn time (PS2 launch probs, PSP, Vaio computers, etc). If they were a new Japanese company, they'd never take off. But they have their old track record to rely on.
So, no, I don't think it's that people give them the benefit of the doubt because they're local, but because they used to not make shitty products. It's a lousy reason to give the benefit of the doubt (after all, they do make lousy products now), but it isn't about keeping consumer money out of foreign pockets, from what I can see.
Sorry, "goes into Japanese pockets and stays away from Japanese devils" should be "goes into Japanese pockets and stays away from Foreign devils". It's early in the morning here, I need my coffee.
You had to go throw in Bose, didn't you? If what you say is true, then quality has nothing to do with it. Even Sony's crap-ass speakers sound better than Bose, and cost less too. But then you probably have a Bose system, don't you?
When I say "quality", I really mean "freedom from product failures". I.e. products not breaking.
Regarding Bose: yes, I know, "If it has no highs and has no lows, it must be Bose". And, no, I don't have a Bose system, never have, and have heard enough bad stuff about their audio quality that I never plan to. So your guess was a bit off base. But, regardless, when I say "Japanese consumers care more about quality than nationality", I should have phrased it "Japanese consumers care more about their products not breaking on them than nationality".
1) The trend I'm talking about is a general trend. I don't mean to indicate that Japanese base all individual purchases at all based on durability tests, just that their general purchasing decisions are based on general product durability, which is why they tend to go with Japanese products. It isn't xenophobia, but bad experience in the past. 2) When the XBox came out, there was a big hubbub about disc scratching, and XBox Japan's initial response was "It's no big deal, just ignore it". That really really damaged the reputation of XBox right at the start, when it was most crucial.
Again, what I'm talking about isn't written in stone. The PSP had problems when it was released, yet is selling OK (not as well as it would have otherwise, but still well). I just meant to point out that Japanese folks will tend to avoid Product A if from overseas, not because they are concerned about making sure their money goes into Japanese pockets and stays away from Japanese devils, but because overseas products break a lot more. An overseas product with a proven track record doesn't get that stigma.
Japanese couldn't care less about what country a purchase benefits. They stick to products manufactured by Japanese companies (even if the manufacturing is done overseas) because overseas companies often have shitty quality control, and thus tend to break. Sure, some Japanese companies also produce defective products, but the ratio is way, way lower than for American companies.
If a product has a good quality record, Japanese will buy it, regardless of the fact that it benefits other countries. Leica cameras, Harley Davidson bikes, Bose speakers, Apple iPods, BMW cars.
So, yeah, Japanese take business very seriously. And they take quality control very seriously. But they don't take deciding what country their purchases benefit very seriously. They leave that to Americans waving flags and holding placards saying "Buy American!".
True. I certainly didn't mean to say that Japanese or US developer racism was a highly likely factor, just that I don't know enough about the developer end to argue either way about the subject, but on the consumer end, it was certainly not racism that kept people away from the XBox, but awareness of the dearth of games.
While the Japanese are accuse the Xbox of being underpowered in contrast to the up and coming still vapourware PS3, they couldn't use that argument for Xbox vs. PS2 - knowing the Japanese you'd have to assume bias there.
You don't have to assume bias there. You could, instead, assume that Japanese people looked at the shitty and miniscule game lineup, with a new game coming out every month or so (it seemed), and realize that the product wasn't worth buying.
If you want to accuse Japanese developers of not jumping on the XBox bandwagon because they are latently racist, go ahead. If you want to accuse American developers of not making Japanese versions of their games because they are latently racist, go ahead. But the reason that Japanese gamers didn't buy the XBox is because the Japanese XBox had a horrible, shitty selection of games, and gamers aren't stupid.
To be fair, Halo also sold OK. It wasn't well liked, but a lot of people bought it at the start to see what the fuss was.
But, yeah, other than that, GTA? Fable? Jade Empire? You'd think, since this was for the Japanese market, they'd pick games that Japanese knew, not games that Westerners knew and that were relative unknowns in Japan.
And, again, this brings up the point: why are you then discussing it in a topic about this game? When I played SWG, I was a roleplaying dancer/musician, who also crafted on the side. Combat was a diversion to me. I gained my raw materials through mining. I gained my items by creating them using my mined resources, or the money I obtained from selling my mined resources in order to buy other materials. I gained skill points by crafting, dancing, and playing music. I gained my money by (again) selling my resources, and in tips for playing music and dancing.
Yes, what you say is true, about many other games, but not this one. And there is a lot of violence on TV, but not on the Golden Girls. I'm not refuting what you say, but I don't understand what it has to do with the topic at hand. We're discussing one of the exceptions, and yet your initial argument was phrased as if this game was part of the problem.
Yet the video games on the shelf at your local game store focus on combat almost exclusively.
And yet you've chosen a genre (MMORPGs) known for having much more than combat as your venue for this complaint? I played and rapidly quit SWG. It wasn't, for me, much fun. But I don't hesitate to point out that it offered not only fighting, but crafting, economics, politics, dancing, music, and role playing. Not all beautifully rounded out (dancing and music weren't implemented so great), but some of it was quite full (read any forums about price gouging, merchant guilds in price collusion, and the like for insight about how important the economic sphere was to the game...and remember that it wasn't just gouging for combat related things, but decorative clothing, home furnishings, vehicles, mounts, and the like).
It's like complaining about how violence is all you see on TV in a discussion about an episode of the Golden Girls where one person slaps another.
Yes. They are also probably trying to maximize the amount of money they receive despite minimizing the amount of money they spend. Individual workers may also be trying to increase the amount of money they get from Microsoft, despite trying to minimize the amount of money they spend on products and services in their own lives. And it's been rumored that when Bill Gates invests in stocks, he tries to buy low, despite trying to sell high. Up is truly down in the Microsoft world.
Manufacturers try to get into situations where people pay more for their goods. Purchasers try to get into situations where they pay less for their goods. A person or company that both manufactures and purchases may try to raise the price that they sell at, while lowering the price they buy at. That's about as interesting as the sun rising.
Is that a defense of Microsoft's general practices? No. They've certainly got plenty of ethical problems. But pointing out this as another example of them is like pointing out that Nixon liked the color red as an example of how he was a lousy president.
No, that's more like saying "since people think only criminals have something to hide, and as good citizens that compulsory search and seizure is nothing to mind, it will be easy for them to get such a change to the law made".
Describing something bad does not mean agreeing with it. That a shift to these systems would make it easier for a law to be passed quashing them is unfortunate. But being unfortunate doesn't make something thereby untrue, and saying something is true is not saying it's a good thing.
Now, I put "praised" in quotes because it's obvious that this was pretty backhanded (it's not "debateable", as Zonk said it was, it's completely obvious what he meant).
I disagree that it is obvious. It may have been straightforward praise, it may have been backhanded praise, and it may have been praised couched in words that would prevent his bosses from getting angry at him. And hence, since there are people who disbelieve that it is obvious, it is debatable, QED.
Yeah, but that's true for every company. Also, competitors have problems, one's own company has challenges. Competitors struggle, one's own company strives. Think of it as the same verb that conjugates differently depending on whether it's first, second, or third person.
just another way of saying nintendo is niche now. and not really a competitor.
That's about what I heard, too. He's saying "Good for you, Nintendo, you go cater to all those Yahoo! Games players who won't touch our FPSs anyhow, and let us big boys handle the real gamers."
Wait, how does that work? The person you're responding to is saying that Microsoft is saying Nintendo is going after a niche of gamers. You're saying that they're going after Yahoo! Gamers, which is a far wider market, and far from niche. Yet you're saying "that's what I heard too", despite the fact that what you heard is apparently the opposite of what the parent said.
No, "This is the message we've been spreading, and we can see Nintendo rallying to that cry" sounds EXACTLY like MS taking credit. Saying that potential consumers have been crying for more ease of play, and Nintendo is rallying to that cry, does NOT sound EXACTLY like MS taking credit.
I agree with your point that the definition of "popular" needs clarification. I personally am just going off my memory of the time, which is that, as you say, it seemed like every gamer and 5% of the rest of the PC-owning world had a copy of Doom 1. However, my memory is that maybe 10% of gamers but 50% of the rest of the PC-owning world had a copy of Myst 1.
Googling seems to indicate that 3 million copies of Doom were sold, and 7 million copies of Myst were sold.
Slashdot Mirror
"You could get good DVD players (Panasonic brand) in $150 in late 2000."
Perhaps in America. Not here in Japan. The PS2 was cheaper than the cheapest DVD player, and I know two people with absolutely no interest in games who bought it exclusively as a cheapish DVD player.
Eric,
First, while I don't have access to government officials, I'm pretty certain that, were I to ask one "Is Japanese nationalism (or outright racism, as some would call it) much more pervasive than anything in the U.S?", they would almost certainly answer "No". As such, when you tell me to "ask the Japanese government", you're pointing me at a "No" answer, so I take it you agree with me?
Also, an aside: Japan doesn't "venerate" cannibalistic serial killers. There was one cannibalistic killer, Issei Sagawa, who avoided prison and made the TV circuit, but he was neither a serial killer, nor was he venerated. And Japan's most popular pornography series is not named "Rapeman". There was a comic by that name, but it's probably more well known by Americans (due to the Steve Albini band of the same name) than in Japan. Japan's most popular porn series is probably the Max Cafe series or some other generic woman-has-ordinary-sex-with-man series.
However, I digress: Neither Issei nor Rapeman have much to do with nationalism, and even less to do with why the XBox 360 is not having stellar sales.
Japanese nationalism (or outright racism, as some would call it) is much more pervasive than anything in the U.S...Just ask the Chinese of Koreans.
Ah, yes, nothing like checking with an unbiased reference.
Americans, while less racist than Japanese, are far more evil and more likely to kill babies and drink their blood just for fun. Just ask the North Koreans.
Your point is well taken.
Well, if you wanted me to go really in depth, what I would have said was "Japanese love quality products, and tend to give companies the benefit of the doubt if they have good track records, even if the good part of the track record is so old that it should probably be ignored by now". Sony made great stuff a decade or more ago. They still do, in some fields. In other fields, they make products that break annoyingly all the damn time (PS2 launch probs, PSP, Vaio computers, etc). If they were a new Japanese company, they'd never take off. But they have their old track record to rely on.
So, no, I don't think it's that people give them the benefit of the doubt because they're local, but because they used to not make shitty products. It's a lousy reason to give the benefit of the doubt (after all, they do make lousy products now), but it isn't about keeping consumer money out of foreign pockets, from what I can see.
Sorry, "goes into Japanese pockets and stays away from Japanese devils" should be "goes into Japanese pockets and stays away from Foreign devils". It's early in the morning here, I need my coffee.
You had to go throw in Bose, didn't you? If what you say is true, then quality has nothing to do with it. Even Sony's crap-ass speakers sound better than Bose, and cost less too. But then you probably have a Bose system, don't you?
When I say "quality", I really mean "freedom from product failures". I.e. products not breaking.
Regarding Bose: yes, I know, "If it has no highs and has no lows, it must be Bose". And, no, I don't have a Bose system, never have, and have heard enough bad stuff about their audio quality that I never plan to. So your guess was a bit off base. But, regardless, when I say "Japanese consumers care more about quality than nationality", I should have phrased it "Japanese consumers care more about their products not breaking on them than nationality".
Well, 2 things:
1) The trend I'm talking about is a general trend. I don't mean to indicate that Japanese base all individual purchases at all based on durability tests, just that their general purchasing decisions are based on general product durability, which is why they tend to go with Japanese products. It isn't xenophobia, but bad experience in the past.
2) When the XBox came out, there was a big hubbub about disc scratching, and XBox Japan's initial response was "It's no big deal, just ignore it". That really really damaged the reputation of XBox right at the start, when it was most crucial.
Again, what I'm talking about isn't written in stone. The PSP had problems when it was released, yet is selling OK (not as well as it would have otherwise, but still well). I just meant to point out that Japanese folks will tend to avoid Product A if from overseas, not because they are concerned about making sure their money goes into Japanese pockets and stays away from Japanese devils, but because overseas products break a lot more. An overseas product with a proven track record doesn't get that stigma.
Japanese couldn't care less about what country a purchase benefits. They stick to products manufactured by Japanese companies (even if the manufacturing is done overseas) because overseas companies often have shitty quality control, and thus tend to break. Sure, some Japanese companies also produce defective products, but the ratio is way, way lower than for American companies.
If a product has a good quality record, Japanese will buy it, regardless of the fact that it benefits other countries. Leica cameras, Harley Davidson bikes, Bose speakers, Apple iPods, BMW cars.
So, yeah, Japanese take business very seriously. And they take quality control very seriously. But they don't take deciding what country their purchases benefit very seriously. They leave that to Americans waving flags and holding placards saying "Buy American!".
True. I certainly didn't mean to say that Japanese or US developer racism was a highly likely factor, just that I don't know enough about the developer end to argue either way about the subject, but on the consumer end, it was certainly not racism that kept people away from the XBox, but awareness of the dearth of games.
While the Japanese are accuse the Xbox of being underpowered in contrast to the up and coming still vapourware PS3, they couldn't use that argument for Xbox vs. PS2 - knowing the Japanese you'd have to assume bias there.
You don't have to assume bias there. You could, instead, assume that Japanese people looked at the shitty and miniscule game lineup, with a new game coming out every month or so (it seemed), and realize that the product wasn't worth buying.
If you want to accuse Japanese developers of not jumping on the XBox bandwagon because they are latently racist, go ahead. If you want to accuse American developers of not making Japanese versions of their games because they are latently racist, go ahead. But the reason that Japanese gamers didn't buy the XBox is because the Japanese XBox had a horrible, shitty selection of games, and gamers aren't stupid.
To be fair, Halo also sold OK. It wasn't well liked, but a lot of people bought it at the start to see what the fuss was.
But, yeah, other than that, GTA? Fable? Jade Empire? You'd think, since this was for the Japanese market, they'd pick games that Japanese knew, not games that Westerners knew and that were relative unknowns in Japan.
Yes, and journalists also consider workaholism to be harmful as well. What's your point?
And, again, this brings up the point: why are you then discussing it in a topic about this game? When I played SWG, I was a roleplaying dancer/musician, who also crafted on the side. Combat was a diversion to me. I gained my raw materials through mining. I gained my items by creating them using my mined resources, or the money I obtained from selling my mined resources in order to buy other materials. I gained skill points by crafting, dancing, and playing music. I gained my money by (again) selling my resources, and in tips for playing music and dancing.
Yes, what you say is true, about many other games, but not this one. And there is a lot of violence on TV, but not on the Golden Girls. I'm not refuting what you say, but I don't understand what it has to do with the topic at hand. We're discussing one of the exceptions, and yet your initial argument was phrased as if this game was part of the problem.
Yet the video games on the shelf at your local game store focus on combat almost exclusively.
And yet you've chosen a genre (MMORPGs) known for having much more than combat as your venue for this complaint? I played and rapidly quit SWG. It wasn't, for me, much fun. But I don't hesitate to point out that it offered not only fighting, but crafting, economics, politics, dancing, music, and role playing. Not all beautifully rounded out (dancing and music weren't implemented so great), but some of it was quite full (read any forums about price gouging, merchant guilds in price collusion, and the like for insight about how important the economic sphere was to the game...and remember that it wasn't just gouging for combat related things, but decorative clothing, home furnishings, vehicles, mounts, and the like).
It's like complaining about how violence is all you see on TV in a discussion about an episode of the Golden Girls where one person slaps another.
Yes. They are also probably trying to maximize the amount of money they receive despite minimizing the amount of money they spend. Individual workers may also be trying to increase the amount of money they get from Microsoft, despite trying to minimize the amount of money they spend on products and services in their own lives. And it's been rumored that when Bill Gates invests in stocks, he tries to buy low, despite trying to sell high. Up is truly down in the Microsoft world.
Manufacturers try to get into situations where people pay more for their goods. Purchasers try to get into situations where they pay less for their goods. A person or company that both manufactures and purchases may try to raise the price that they sell at, while lowering the price they buy at. That's about as interesting as the sun rising.
Is that a defense of Microsoft's general practices? No. They've certainly got plenty of ethical problems. But pointing out this as another example of them is like pointing out that Nixon liked the color red as an example of how he was a lousy president.
No, that's more like saying "since people think only criminals have something to hide, and as good citizens that compulsory search and seizure is nothing to mind, it will be easy for them to get such a change to the law made".
Describing something bad does not mean agreeing with it. That a shift to these systems would make it easier for a law to be passed quashing them is unfortunate. But being unfortunate doesn't make something thereby untrue, and saying something is true is not saying it's a good thing.
Ah, ok, that makes sense.
Now, I put "praised" in quotes because it's obvious that this was pretty backhanded (it's not "debateable", as Zonk said it was, it's completely obvious what he meant).
I disagree that it is obvious. It may have been straightforward praise, it may have been backhanded praise, and it may have been praised couched in words that would prevent his bosses from getting angry at him. And hence, since there are people who disbelieve that it is obvious, it is debatable, QED.
Yeah, but that's true for every company. Also, competitors have problems, one's own company has challenges. Competitors struggle, one's own company strives. Think of it as the same verb that conjugates differently depending on whether it's first, second, or third person.
just another way of saying nintendo is niche now. and not really a competitor.
That's about what I heard, too. He's saying "Good for you, Nintendo, you go cater to all those Yahoo! Games players who won't touch our FPSs anyhow, and let us big boys handle the real gamers."
Wait, how does that work? The person you're responding to is saying that Microsoft is saying Nintendo is going after a niche of gamers. You're saying that they're going after Yahoo! Gamers, which is a far wider market, and far from niche. Yet you're saying "that's what I heard too", despite the fact that what you heard is apparently the opposite of what the parent said.
No, "This is the message we've been spreading, and we can see Nintendo rallying to that cry" sounds EXACTLY like MS taking credit. Saying that potential consumers have been crying for more ease of play, and Nintendo is rallying to that cry, does NOT sound EXACTLY like MS taking credit.
Ah, good point. I'd forgotten about that.
I agree with your point that the definition of "popular" needs clarification. I personally am just going off my memory of the time, which is that, as you say, it seemed like every gamer and 5% of the rest of the PC-owning world had a copy of Doom 1. However, my memory is that maybe 10% of gamers but 50% of the rest of the PC-owning world had a copy of Myst 1.
Googling seems to indicate that 3 million copies of Doom were sold, and 7 million copies of Myst were sold.
Myst would be _way_ down the list, far below Doom
Myst, at its peak, was far more popular than Doom at its peak.