Wow, just wow

If any of those death threats was purposeful, then the rage over Sony porting FF13 to the 360 in Japan portends a deeper social issue. On the face, I would call it protectionism at the individual level, which has not yet reverberated into the upper organizational and societal levels. The Japanese economy has never fully recovered from the crash in the late 1980s and as such for a country in a multi-decade, prolonged recession, individual Japanese citizens will eventually turn to protectionism at the basic individual consumer level.

In the US, mainly in the Midwest, South and rural areas you will find people who find every chance to proclaim "I buy American" or "Made by America for America" or "Made in the USA." My maternal Grandfather was among these individuals who never bought a car that was not made by Ford or GM.

This case illustrates just how much some Japanese gamers do not want Microsoft or any non-Japanese gaming console to succeed in Japan. At all, just look at the VGChartz numbers for the Xbox and Xbox 360 in the Japanese market. Sony and Nintendo are Japanese institutions, thusforth any beloved franchise which is ported to a non-Japanese console in Japan is perceived as a threat to the viability of the Japanese video game industry. It is a threat because if the game sells well, then a non-Japanese company, Microsoft, will be getting a portion of the proceeds. Completely ridiculous, I know.

This is just how I perceive it. I could very well be wrong.

What about those fucked up japanese customers who happened to own 360 and then were forced to buy crappy expensive PS3 just to play FF13? You all seem to not even think about them. And I think they have all rights to be pissed off, it's not "fanboyisms" or "meltdowns" mind you.

While he does have a point, SE really lied after all, they haven't delivered the promised DLC, they announced FFXIII as exclusive which now comes to 360, and FFvXIII probably following the same suit, this is going way tooo far.

It's just a game, dude!

I think you got it wrong. It was case for ToV when people were cheated into buying hot , noisy, not reliable x360 to play what was in fact beta version thinking it will be exclusive. With the amount of exclusives PS3 gets in Japan compared to x360 ones i don't think any serious gamer there would be unhappy about buying ps3 (and that's before we go into american vs Japanise console)

And it seems like SE lost it's face over those blatant lies.

Another part of the picture which I have been informed of by posters here is that handheld gaming is HUGE in Japan, which exacerbates the issue when it comes to console. If it is true that a majority of Japanese gamers prefer handhelds as their primary gaming device, then that leaves an increasingly smaller segment of Japanese who primarily use a console as their primary gaming device.

I would be very interested to see year-over-year gains (in percentages) for gaming on iOS devices such as the iPod for Japan vs. the PSP and DS.

This would further clarify if there really is an American vs. Japanese mentality going on for a portion of gamers or whether it is really a myth driven by the gaming community.

That seals it then. They HAVE to release on 360 in Japan, otherwise it would be caving in to ridiculous fanaticism. They also need to take vsXIII multiplat globally too. Make those fanatics heads assplode.

FF XIII for xbox360 its going to sell how much in japan? they are overreacting over some lousy 4 copies... SE made some dumb move because is getting bad publicity, will lose customers trust and will sell poorly. it is not worth IMO

yes, i mean, so desu nee

From the look at some of those messages it seems that the fans are also upset about the quality of the finished game. so i think some of them are using this as an oppertunity to attack him for FF13's quality.