| kain_kusanagi said:
Your sports analogy isn't as accuret many would assume. Every sport has it's region. Soccer is more popular outside of the USA, but it really is the only sport that has world wide fanship. Most sports are as tied to their culture of origin as brands of beer. But we are talking about a ball game. Reduce soccor down to it's basics and it sounds a lot like football's basics. Get the ball to the other side of the field. In that regard sports games are popular everywhere. Video games should appeal universaly in Japan like they do in the rest of the world. Why are the Japanese the only ones that don't want to play the rest of the world's games? My Japanese friend and the respected gaming industry veteran Keiji Inafune agree. The Japanese don't want to play foriegn games because they only want stuff made in Japan. It took a decade for Japan to catch on to what the rest of world was enjoying in Apple's iPhone. But it finaly happened. Maybe the Nextbox will be able to do what Apple finaly did. I don't know. The Japanese have to be willing to try something new and keep an open mind to having fun regardless of the products country of origin. Keiji Inafune seems to think that it will be a difficult mountain to climb even though he likes the Xbox and enjoyed western games himself. He knows Japanese culture and he believes they aren't buying the stellar western games because they aren't Japanese. |
Well, I don't know why you are jut writing off my soccer vs football example, or the link with photos of a japanese video game store aisles...
but moving on, if I were just to simply accept that your friend and keiji know better than everyone else, then MS just needs to make Japanese games and secure more Japanese software. MS knew this from the beginning, and really just barely tried.
Regarding Apple's Ipod, you REALLY need to read up on Japan mate. Japan has had cheap smart-phone-like phones for a good ten years before iphone. Iphone coming out wsn't like it was here, with fanfare and gasps and holy shit. It was like "ok this phone is made by apple and can do more than other phones but is more expensive". Dude, even new features that samsung shows us with galaxy have been on phones in Japan for over a decade. I'm not saying Japan had iphone and galaxy 10 years ago, but I'm clarifying for you that there is a stark difference between our market and theirs and you should stop imagining they are the same. Iphone here was revolutionary. Iphone there was just business as usual, but more expensive, and less pretty.
