lol yeah yeah I know what you meant... but I wanted to clarify to non EU people here.... hey why do you think I migrated from europe to USA ???? LOL :P

the thing is here they give you money and then you can pay for social security (health insurance in USA) and stuff yourself if you want... in countries like france you don't have the choice it's directly extract on your salary.... so you have to balance that thing... I mean in france I can jump from the 6th floor broke my 2 legs 2 arms twist my spine... and be in an hospital for 2 years i'll be covered and even my job might be saved.... 

it's an exemple it looks cool for US people... but trust me I'd rather have a bigger salary not being covered and invest that money the way I want..... (buying a PS3 for instance lol)

I wasn't countering you albionus, I was just clarrifying the fact that EU economical system is totaly different from the US one... especially when you start to compare the small ones or the new ones..... EU has a long way to go to be an homogenous market..... and even more to be a United "nation".....  

without saying that portuguese are not working in portugal lol ;) :P just teasing :)

@endimion
Oh ok, it seemed odd since you were mostly expanding on my points but I get what you meant. I don't know, from the standpoint of someone who wants the Wii to win maybe it is better to have the government take enough of your money so you can only afford a Wii :P.

As for the Portugese workers, so long as they have enough workers to staff the Port vinyards I don't care where they are working :). Of course though I don't live in Britain and I do have some sympathy for them since we have a similar problem here.

 Sorry for the late reply. You're right of course, I am just speculating, but I think they're fairly sensible points (of course I made the points so I would). As for the name though, it's billions of dollars of wasted marketing in Japan. Usually we call this throwing good money after bad. The fact is after the failure of the first system, the Japanese gaming majority looked down on anything Xbox. I've heard many a Japanese gamer say that even though they know it's a good system with good games, they'd never buy one. Even among the hardcore. That's how powerful the negative branding is. It's worse than the old European perception of Nintendo: Not Cool.

Microsoft needed a fresh start and they needed to dissociate with their old branding. Notice Nintendo never calls it "Nintendo Wii", just "Wii"? That's because they recognised the negative connotations associated with 'Nintendo'. I think the Sega branding idea sounded good actually.

ok didn't it occur to anybody that if they don't like US product it's because... USA droped 2 nuclear bombs on them less than 60 years ago ????? I mean I'm not saying they hate USA still today, but I would understand a certain conservatism in term of consumer behavior for that reason.... hell USA rename their Fries (yeah the congress changed back to French fries less than a year ago) and stopped buying wine just because we don't support their international policy....

Its mostly because its an american company, and xbox hosts more NA type games then the other consoles ( what i mean by this is you know shooters wrpgs exclusives etc)

We are the second biggest exporter to Japan so I don't think history or foreign policy is having much of an effect.  Same with the Frenchie issues, lot of media coverage but the overall effect was minimal (French wine exports had been declining for a while already). 

The big issue I think was what my Japanese Economics professor mentioned in class a few days ago when discussing demand/supply/revenue etc curves in relation to domestic and world markets.  He was talking about US TV makers in the 70's/80's and basically their problem in Japan was that the quality-demand curve in Japan is much steeper than in the US especially when it comes to electronics, that is the Japanese customers demand a much higher level of quality than US manufactures are used to.  That pretty much explains the 360's troubles in Japan.

As I've mentioned in other threads the 360 goes to Japan with an already bad reputation for quality as an American electronics product and so it needs to be extra good to get around that.  Unfortunately for MS the 360 at best doesn't even have an average level of quality.

I agree, I think Americans we play various systems but we are picky, and American developers know what best suits us, Whereas Japanese developers appeal more to their market and Japanese buy only Japanese made products and games, its true. The Xbox brand isn't going to dominate in Japan as long as Nintendo and Sony is around. Microsoft better find another way on attracting Japanese people to their system cause its currently isn't working.

For me as long as American developers are still supporting the system I have know problem. I usually gain more attention to American/European games than I do Japanese. Just the simple fact they are long winded. So thats my opinon on that subject. I see Sony, and Nintendo always going to dominate in the Japanese market, and Microsoft will always dominate in the U.S. market

hum well yeah, it's like france and germany I guess.... but a certain cultural barrier must exist I mean I'm from the region right next to Germany and there is still some stigmats over there even now.... and what kind of exportation is it ??? because if it's service or raw material it's not really concerning directly the consumer....

I don't know about their economy as much as you do.... but I did do different classes of consumer behavior and one was focused on asia and particulary japan.... and to enter that market the cultural barrier is really important.... I mean you had to adapt to japanese culture more than you have to adapt to european culture when you come from the US or Asia...
meaning that a global marketing campaign wouldn't work as well on the japanese market than the US/EU one

but about quality that's weird what you are saying because Sony is certainly not a quality company in term of electronics or at least not the best... So why would Sony work in japan if what you are saying is true (which I think it is) I mean on top of my head I can name at least 3 brands in any sector except camcorders which are of better quality and not from japan in any of their market....
maybe it's the price... I don't know their policy in term of exportation/importation what are the entry tax for other countries product and the disponibility of those product..... because saying the success of Sony is due to quality is like saying the success of windows is due to quality it doesn't make any sense to me.....

woops I didn't see he was talking about the 70's/80's and comparing it to US brands at that time...

never mind I can see what he was saying then....