japan

Showing 26 posts tagged japan

Why Xbox failed in Japan

A fascinating, in-depth look by Wesley Yin-Poole for Eurogamer.net. One humorous bit at the beginning from 2001 when Bill Gates was about to give the keynote at the Tokyo Game Show:

Backstage, Gates turned to Kevin Bachus, at the time Xbox director of third party relations and the man charged with getting all those Japanese executives out there in the audience to make games for Microsoft’s new console. “Here, hold this,” Gates said, pulling out his wallet. “I don’t like having anything in my pocket when I’m talking.”

Suddenly, Bachus was holding the wallet of the richest man in the world. It felt thin, as if only a credit card and a driver’s license were inside. “I was terrified to even open it,” he remembers over a decade later. “But of course that’s all you need when you’re a billionaire right?”

As Apple and Samsung dominate, Japan’s tech giants are in a free fall

Chico Harlan, reporting for The Washington Post:

The pace of problems is accelerating. Sony hasn’t made a profit in four years. Panasonic has lost money in three of the past four. Along with Sharp, the companies’ combined market value, according to Bloomberg, is $32 billion — making them one-fifth the value of Samsung and one-twentieth the value of Apple.

The smartphone angle here is obvious. So is the pricing squeeze angle. Not-so-obvious: the complete and utter failure of each of these companies to understand the importance of software tying in with hardware.

Did you know that the Japanese Shinkansen train was late for a total of 0.6 seconds in 2010?

connectedtravelling:

In 2004, due to typhoons, the Shinkansen total annual delays were 42 seconds. It was a disgrace to Japan. (source)

If a train were to be late for 5 minutes, everyone receives a free journey and an apology from the conductor. If a train is delayed 10 minutes, it would be in the newspaper.

So to say train delays are serious business would be an understatement. And last week, knowing what I knew about trains and average delays, I began snapping the following photos, unfolding in time, to mark the first major delay of a Japanese Shinkansen in 2011.

This was one of my favorite things about Japan. Everything was exactly on time. Always. 

I also love that there are no tips. You pay exactly what is on the menu.

What you see is exactly what you get. 

Japan Donation

Had a busy day — hadn’t had a chance to hop on Tumblr until now. See all these icons with Japanese flags overlaid on them in my stream. Immediately understand what’s going on. Look to the right side of the Dashboard. Donation took 3 seconds. Easiest thing in the world. Ingenious implementation.