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Comment by hhkb | Hacker News Reader

Think one of the key advantages Japanese (and other East Asian) companies have over the US/EU counterparts is that they have very strong national sentiments. You saw this with Nissan debacle. Same with a couple of Korean companies. All the more reasons to believe that the Chinese market is simply a mirage for Western companies.

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Perhaps westerners could learn a thing or two from this attitude.

We definitely should learn it: and treat those with adversarial intent (China) as the enemy they are.

What makes you think China has adversarial intent? Or are you just feeling insecure at the fact that white people may no longer be at the top?

1. China does not share liberal values. They have been genociding Uighurs for many years.

2. China is bent on expanding territory. It has border disputes with nearly all of its neighbors. https://asianews.press/2020/06/30/china-has-border-dispute-l...

3. China has threatened military action against western allies, like Taiwan.

4. China has repeatedly violated promises that its made, like the Hong Kong handover.

5. China steals sensitive technology and manufacturing plans from foreign companies. It has mandated that foreign companies establish joint ventures with Chinese companies to do business in China, with unrestricted access to all internal company documents and systems of the foreign company.

The other comment in response covers it, mostly. To your second question: the first thing that comes to mind about China is “did it happen in modern China or Nazi Germany?”, not “oh noes whites are not in charge there!”

American companies used to have this attitude. I have always wondered what changed.

Erosion of traditional values through marxism, feminism etc. Japan is still holding but not for long.

Are you serious?

Perhaps you could elaborate a bit? I’m not sure I follow how Marxism and Feminism eroded values to change Western business practices.

What? Are you suggesting that a lack of fealty to corporations is a result of the rise of feminism and marxism? Could you give more detail on these connections?

Isn't it more a lack of fealty from corporations?

For the people lost about the connection:

Fascists value:

- corporatism

- nationalism

- "traditional values"

- masculinity / machismo

This guy is arguing that we've been straying from these (his) ideals, and corporations that don't stay domestic are part of a larger narrative of cultural decline.

It became unnecessary for survival.

I suspect a comment above you spelled it out: corporations value stock price too highly.

When stock price is all that matters, cutting costs wherever they think they can get away with it is the end result (over a long enough period, I'd assume this will always happen as execs cycle through)

As things (engineering, components, design, UX, etc) are cut, customers notice - and switch to brands that they percieve as having cut less. One example of this I'd assume is Apple.

That’s an interesting take, but I was making a different point. Corporations will always do what’s necessary to thrive, and what they need to thrive is largely a function of what society demands. If the corporations are taking down their nationalist trappings, then it’s because we no longer demand them. As far as my globalist politics is concerned, that’s good and well.

Is that necessarily a good thing though? Sure you'd want to co-opt a national identity, when it's suitable. But imagine if all the Silicon Valley era companies doubled down on their national identity at any point in their history...

I certainly don’t believe it’s good or bad. It’s more of a cultural phenomenon. US is also a cultural melting pot and they benefit a great deal from being open commercially as well.

Eh, maybe in the past but not so much today. Sony is being effectively run from California, which means that their standards for appropriate game content are being decided according to San Francisco, and not Tokyo, values. The PS5 is doing worse than any previous Sony console in the Japanese market as a result.

The PS5 reached the highest launch month sales in US history

I meant to say that the PS5 was doing more poorly in Japan than any previous Sony console, and have edited my comment to reflect this.

That might have more to do with the state of the Japanese economy this year than the location of Sony headquarters.

It's actually been a long standing trend since the start of the PS3/Xbox360 generation. Iirc Sega had to merge with Sammy to weather the storm. Especially after losing so much money in the previous generation on the Dreamcast.

In that period, the Japanese videogame market shrunk a great deal, and many Japanese developers either went out of business, merged, or courted western publishers.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/222192/Japans_console_ga...

So I wouldn't have thought a Microsoft takeover attempt would have truly been laughed out the room at that time.

But Nintendo are a very unique company. Much like Ferrari in Italy.

Very few brands in the world like it. They would have found willing backers that cherished their independence.

PS5 is really hard to buy in Japan, maybe same as all other countries. The rumor is that SIE reduced selling units for Japan and increased for US/EU. It seems reasonable because anyway Japanese non-core gamers won't buy Xbox Series S/X.

Actually, PS4 launch in Japan was delayed 3 month from US/EU so the PS5 situation is a bit improved, but still complained.

Another complain for PS5 (and SIE US) is that they changed ○/×/△/□ button meaning. Previously ○ was assigned to OK and × was Cancel that's opposite to foreign edition. Now on PS5, its assignment is same as foreign edition but it feels very strange use of symbol for almost all Japanese people. It should be PSX's initial design failure.

What do you feel Tokyo’s values would be? Bring Kutaragi back and revisit new/different CPU architectures?

Eroge make up a large part of the market in Japan, like it or not -- and SCE in California are committed to eliminating toxic masculinity from their platform, even if it means leaving yen on the table.

I did some quick Google searches for the best-selling PlayStation 1, 2, and 3 games in Japan as those consoles were spearheaded by Tokyo. [1][2][3] I didn't see very many Eroge games. I do agree that they're a notable market, especially compared to the west, but they strike me as more niche than a cornerstone genre like action games.

> SCE in California are committed to eliminating toxic masculinity from their platform

I'd love to understand what you mean a little better here. I think I might have an impression from the themes of the God of War reboot, but I was curious if there's a Sony policy you might be able to reference and how that's influenced their first-party production. I'm having trouble understanding the overlap between anime-styled erotica and western depictions of masculinity.

EDIT: updated line spacing for readability

[1] https://www.neogaf.com/threads/flashback-sales-top-seeling-p...

[2] http://garaph.info/gamesearch.php?titleenglish=&stte=0&title...

[3] https://www.neogaf.com/threads/media-create-sales-04-06-04-1...

I'd been interested in this. I primarily wonder if videogames have the same cultural weight in Japanese society anymore.

From what I see on my Nintendo switch they are interested in different types of games. PC and consoles games seem to be more action. Nintendo has a ton of more old school types of games like JRPGs and platformers. There are also some creepy Japanese games I see, not sure what’s the game play is like. I can’t even describe what they are other than having flirty Anime type girls.

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