Originally posted by Makosuke
So are the Japanese at times. They seem disproportionally good at it on the fringes of society.
Anyway, this illustrates three things to me:
1) Just how low MS is willing to stoop when it gets desperate. Apparently illegality and bullying aren't the limits--outright sleaze is open season, too, it just doesn't usually sell business software.
2) The Japanese obviously have some taste, at least in video game consoles (or the companies that make them).
3) The Japanese obviously don't have a great deal of taste in video games, or else Halo would be more popular than DoA Volleyball. But then, the popularity of train driving simulations and Chocobo racing games pretty much established that already.
Man, the XBox is getting trashed in Japan. That's gotta hurt if you're MS, especially considering how much money they've dumped into advertising it there--practically every other ad on video game shows last year was for the XBox, despite the fact that it was being outsold by the PS1. This year they seem to have given up entirely--I don't think I saw that icky X logo the whole three weeks I was there.
Maybe the Japanese are just less succeptable to merciless multi-billion dollar advertising campaigns and hardware sold at a loss--they prefer elegance and variety, perhaps.
