OMG!! The ignorance.

1) Japanese like things that work.
2) Japanese like traditions.

So from (1), Xbox killed itself by starting out with a system that would fail. They also like tradition (2) that xbox does not have. It also got the word around that it would RROD... which made it even worse for it.

It's somewhat a fringe theory, but it has basis in reality. The public sentiment of the US at the time was ardently anti-war, and they did not want to get involved in Europe's problems. FDR recognized that it really wasn't in the US's long term interest to have a powerful Nazi Germany on one side and a powerful Japanese presence in the Pacific, but he couldn't do much to force a war. The theory states that the US knew when and where the Japanese were going to attack and let it happen so the US would have an excuse to declare war on Japan and thus enter the war against Germany and Italy as well. Nobody on the Axis side wanted US in the war because of the difficulty of attacking the mainland, the relatively large population and massive industrial base the US possessed. Japan considered the US embargo to be essentially a declaration of war against them, and hoped that by knocking out the Pacific fleet, the US would no longer be able to project naval power in the Pacific and would stand down.

The reality is probably more in the middle. We knew there was probably going to be an attack, but not 100% sure where or when. We ignored signs that it was going to an attack on Pearl Harbor, and was thus unprepared for the scale of the attack (after all, if we knew it would've been much more effective for the US to be attacked, but also manage to inflict massive damage on the Japanese fleet in a counter-attack). But the allied leaders certainly weren't complaining, since FDR got his popular support for war, and they say Churchill said " We've won the war" after hearing Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Sorry for the long winded history there, I enjoy reading about WW2.

I've been in Japanese elementary and middle school though, and can say for certain that WW2 is touched upon rather extensively. They take a strange viewpoint though. If I had to describe, they look at it almost as if it was divine punishment or an act of nature, which actually fits in with the Japanese cultural mentality. Atrocities are mentioned but not extensively covered outside of the Holocaust (though that could be because of age of the students). Pacifism is strongly stressed. There are school that do use textbooks that gloss over these facts, but it was something like 10 out of 10,000 schools that ordered them.

The last time I was there, the right-wing nationalists were viewed as being essentially bat-shit insane and Yakuza connected people, so I wouldn't say it's a popular ideology.

As far as the Ainu go, they don't really teach much about them. But at the same time, it's an unfortunate reality that almost every country glosses over the status of their oppressed minorities (US/Mexico/Argentina/etc. and Native Americans, Australia and Aboriginies, Taiwan and the native Taiwanese, Muslims in European countries, the list goes on). That's not to excuse the Japanese, but it's unfortunately not an unusual thing anywhere in the world.

im sure it has nothing to do with a faceless multi billion dollar corporation spreading another of its many tentacles into the console buisness because theres more money for them to be made sony and nintendo are pretty much about video games only while the xbox is just another tool to make cash out of another overfed market..

if they were more successfull than mp3 or gaming consoles.. microsoft would also created its own dishwasher

when the ipod was new and successfulll microsoft created the zune to join the cash in... when the playstation 2 sold so perfectly well ..microsoft created the xbox to join in all that sweet money to be made...oh so we have no games yet...oh look "halo" lets buy bungie and make it a exclusive "what do you mean mr 3rd party developer youre not convinced yet? have some more of our pile of cash to easy your worries"

yeah yeah its exagerated... maybe... but if you think about how they got the tech and the games and how well it obviously works its a little scary

another reason why it isnt as successfull in japan is probably because japans customers are different from americans so if youre a outsider its hard to understand the market and its customers  as well as your 2 native competitors

No, it is because Japanese game players aren't interested in the types of non-interesting games that the 360 primarily tries to bring to the market -- multiplayer shooters and corridor crawling fp rpgs that don't feature interesting characters and stories. Thank the maker that there exists a market that prefers more literary, artistic, or cinematic games -- something that really hasn't dominated the western game market since the days of Infocom and then the very jrpg like imo graphical adventures like King's Quest series from Sierra and Loom and Monkey Island from Lucas Arts or I wouldn't have much of an interest in this hobby.

     On the other hand many in the US do prefer the 360 simply because it is made in America features patriotic themed games like the majority of the shooters and after years of hearing from their grandparents and / or great grandparents   about how the Japanese attacked them at Pearl Harbor.  Luckily, the Others market balances things out.

You're taking the piss, right?

they sell it with ''remember hiroshima'' sticker in front of the box

Not only that the PS1 and PS2 weren't as reliable as their competitors and that didn't stop them from selling.

I... doubt it. A lot of crap overthere is really heavily american influenced....

Also the economic miracle of japan was facilitated partly due to the US.

I'd guess it's more that the japanese are more patriotic.

Japanese companies even will resist being bought out by foreign companies and merge with other japanese ones to avoid being purchased, even if being purchased would be beneficial.

It doesn't have anything with Microsoft being from the USA... everything with it not being from Japan.

When given the option if the products are similar... they're willing to go the extra mile to go japanese.

If only the USA was that patriotic about it.

Japan's cultural xenophobia goes back far longer than World War II. While there may still be some who harbor a specific grudge against the US, far more common would be people who don't buy Microsoft simply because Japanese alternatives are available.

I believe that a far more common case is people who simply believe the 360 isn't for them, and that the PS3 or Wii are better matches for their tastes.

Would a mod please lock this thread? It has basically become an excuse for people to say racist things. A lot of them I think are racist out of ignorance rather than hate, but it still should be locked.

People like DragonLord saying that Japanese people when asked who they are will reply with ''I am the third son..'' to thetonestarr saying everything about Japan is because they took our things and made them weirder.

I don't think these people are meaning to be racist but really it would just be simpler to lock the thread and put an end to it. To be honest I was actually shocked when I saw Dragonlord write that Japanese people will say ''I am the third son of X''. I have never in my entire time in Japan heard anyone say that. Im fairly certain if I mentioned it to any of my friends they would smack me.

Dragonlord I will tell you right now, anything you learnt in a global economics class. Forget it right now. I do a class on Japanese business at university and it is so far from the reality of Japan it is a joke. The entire class is like a 30year old stereotype, and even then it was a stereotype based on misinformation. This class is at one of the best universities in the world for business as well.