9/1/2011

The most pathetic Wapanese whine* is:
“WHY DOES JAPAN GET ALL THE GOOD STUFF?”

Himasoku blog via Google Translate: Women power up – with image! Girly-looking PCs

Embiggen to the full size, 668×1075 px.

*You might think the reason why Japan-gets-all-the-good-stuff-first is that it’s all made here and Japanese need time to translate everything before they send it out to markets all over the world. That’s only half true because most new Japanese product are really beta versions without much documentation (there is very little to translate except some vague instructional manga).

So, how do Japanese use these buggy beta versions with sketchy, non-existent manuals?

It’s rather easy–Japanese expect that they always can call Support any day of the week and get satisfaction. If the product goes wonky, it can easily be returned to where you bought for service for the first seven years in Japan. Hell, last Sunday at 8pm I called Service about my new-just-out-of-the-box but non-functioning WiMax WiFi router and spent 40 minutes re-flashing its ROM with three engineers online. Why they sent out a brand new device that took a total rebuild to function properly is perfect example of Japanese product testing before its global release.

What’s the catch?

Everything in Japan costs 25% more than the global price. Nobody in the rest of the world wants to pay for that level of support…especially for beta products that barely work.