What's the point of stating that "it's made in Japan"? I just don't get it. Does it have improved IME or CJK support? It's not like Japan is famous for its quality software to be honest.
Stop over thinking and just appreciate people work.
And meanwhile, Japan has been the biggest video games actor in the industry for the latest 50 years, so I guess there are some engineers over there.
Maybe I'm just in the wrong bubble, but I've never seen that.
> And meanwhile, Japan has been the biggest video games actor in the industry for the latest 50 years
Japanese games are often notorious bad on the technical details. Their focus is on the gaming part. Though, it has become a bit better in the last years, but usually because Japanese Companies have diversified into international teams.
You have to be from a parallel planet or a limited bubble to not notice that Japanese games have always generally had fewer bugs than Western games, and much less need for patches, ever since arcades and the NES.
Devil May Cry 3 and Dark Souls 1 jumped to my mind immediately as notoriously bad ports. Even DMC4 and DMC5 have some problems. FromSoft games improved the quality of their ports on the other hand.
I do understand that Japanese mostly play on consoles but nowadays it's not an excuse anymore.
It's a hellish development environment even for Western PC-only studios. WHICH PC game has been free of bugs in recent times anyway?
While on the other hand pretty much every PS5 game has been basically flawless on release day.
>WHICH PC game has been free of bugs in recent times anyway? Most indie games that I played. AAA-games are bug fests not because of the platform but because of the negligence by the developers.
Fewer features, fewer bugs.
> AAA-games are bug fests not because of the platform but because of the negligence by the developers.
Meanwhile most AAAs in the last couple years from Japan have been flawless on consoles since launch day.
>most AAAs in the last couple years from Japan Fewer games, fewer opportunities for messing up. On PC FromSoft games had problems with optimization (Elden Ring).
Elden Ring
Demon's Souls
Death Stranding
Resident Evil 4
Final Fantasy 7
Street Fighter 6
Final Fantasy 16
Armored Core 6...
Every major PS5 game in the last couple years, was virtually flawless on release day.
And of course Nintendo is still scoring hits with almost everything.
Meanwhile on Reddit everyone is crying about the PC versions, of even PC-only games!
Starfield has been a bug ridden joke, typical of Bethesda, one of the flagship Western studios, still unable to improve their janky physics and cringey NPCs.
Diablo 4 gave me the only crashes I have ever seen on the PS5.
Harry Potter, Redfall, Immortals of Aveum... overhyped flops. Baldur's Gate 3 has been the only saving grace from the Western gaming industry that I can think of.
Maybe not everybody is flexing but at least people are not complaining about that, like for this web browser.
> Japanese games are often notorious bad on the technical details. Their focus is on the gaming part. Though, it has become a bit better in the last years, but usually because Japanese Companies have diversified into international teams.
So when it's technically bad, it's because the company doesn't have foreigners, when it's good it's because non-Japanese people are working there. Noted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983
Guess which hemisphere was responsible for the Video Game Crash and which one helped the industry recover from it. :)
If you have experience in the video game industry, then I think you get my point but I also enjoy arguing about metrics.
In this case the "actor" was referring as a role in the industry so more about an aggregation of metrics I guess.
Counting Minecraft and Tetris as American games? I suppose Microsoft bought Minecraft and EA licensed Tetris, but that seems to speak more to the business sense of American publishers than quality of American software development.
Eleven out of the twenty best-selling games are Japanese, and 28 out of the top 50.
The top 3 games by units sold were made respectively in Stockholm, Edinburgh and Moscow. How exactly do you figure that makes them "american"?
Also none of those are Japan.
No, but if someone e.g. dubs (and perhaps even recuts) a film for the local market, we would generally still consider it to be "from" the place it was originally made.
> Also none of those are Japan.
Sure, just trying to puncture the americocentrism a little.
And would it not be just as weird to say “designed in California” in the title of this webpage?
I don’t think anyone is questioning Japan having residents that can…fork Firefox. GP was questioning Japan as a mark of software quality, in an attempt to determine the intent behind the messaging.
It’a valid question. It’s a valid critique, even. There really is no need to get so defensive.
I don't understand caring at all about the source, unless there is some fundamental moral hangup with it (such as blood diamonds, for instance).
Generally European countries provide the best protections and the fact it is published in Japan may imply that the US laws don’t apply there (and be a + or not)
Cars made in foo are good, tv made is bar have bad QA
Other people care about work conditions for the produced items they buy, namely not manufactured by children, for which country origin could be an indicator.
Which is pretty dumb thing to care about, since these journeys have minimal carbon footprint, compared to something like local delivery
China has some of the best factories, supply chains, and collaboration in the world. And while yes, of course, loads of intentionally cheap, low-quality goods are churned out regularly, many Chinese companies also make really solid products, often even the best products until you reach a certain ultra-luxury price bracket that they simply aren't trying to compete in.
For example, sure, an LG/Samsung/Sony OLED will be way nicer in terms of picture quality than any Hisense on the market. But the cheapest OLED on BestBuy right now is a last-gen, clearance 46" LG that costs almost ~$700; if you want a 50"+ model, be prepared to spend $1,000 minimum. On the other hand, the 75" U6H I got for $600 was better than any comparable non-OLED offering by non-Chinese companies until you got into the $1,000-1,200+ price range.
Midea is another good example; sure, Bosch, Miele, and Zojirushi often have much nicer luxury products, but if you're a middle/working-class person who doesn't want to or can't spend $300+ on a rice cooker, it'll be hard to beat--unless you get lucky like me and find the one weird guy in your town who happened to be moving cities and selling off all his appliances, including some perfect-condition JDM Zojirushi with an inverter for $100 (and also happen to have a Japanese friend you can annoy to help you figure out what all the Kanji menus do).
Same can be said for handset manufacturers like Xiaomi, etc. And a lot of audio gear as well; $100-200 Russian Oktava microphones easily punch several hundred to several thousand dollars above their class, Chinese brands dominate the mid-range IEM market, and Chinese headphone brands like HiFiMan are difficult to beat in any price bracket -- first paycheck I got, I spent $1,600 on Sennheiser HD 800 S because I wanted the HD 800 as a kid, but realistically, $300 HiFiMan Sundaras will get you almost there for over a thousand less.
Personally, every "made in America" thing I've bought that wasn't manufactured before like 1990 either fell apart and/or was ridiculously expensive compared to things made elsewhere. My association of made in America is either:
A. Truly craftsman, low-volume, specialized products that have an inherently high price tag
B. More commonly, low-quality, over-priced junk that survives only because of nationalism or protectionism alone
> China has some of the best factories, supply chains, and collaboration in the world. And while yes, of course, loads of intentionally cheap, low-quality goods are churned out regularly, many Chinese companies also make really solid products, often even the best products until you reach a certain ultra-luxury price bracket that they simply aren't trying to compete in.
Rather like conservatives' reflexive dislike for California despite more registered Republicans living in California than any other state.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/registered-...
It was very true before, but more like 10 years ago.
For example, Apple, one main reason they chose to produce a lot of the phone in China was because of infrastructure and skills that people have, and not costs anymore.
China (in particular when you see markets like Yiwu!) has an impressive ability to produce all type of quality and grade of products.
I am from neither country, from the perspective of residence, origin, or that of my family. I have absolutely no horse in the race. I just can’t believe that in 2023 Americans still believe this. Does anyone else remember Mac Pros being built in the US 10 years ago?
Exactly. The developers are probably proud to have built something (presumably) high-quality in Japan and they want to promote that fact to help shift the country's image I guess.
- Dense interfaces, flashy colors, the opposite of Apple-style minimalism
- Proprietary software
- Lots of customization when its comes to appearance / theming
- Passionate communities
- Traditionalism, resistance to change
- Function over security
It does not all apply to Floorp, but that's what I think when I think of "made in Japan" software.
For example, Floorp is open source, which I think is less common in Japan than in the west, and hopefully, it is secure. But the customization and "dual sidebar" (i.e. more stuff on screen) features are typically Japanese.
What I don't get is why this is your main and only takeaway. It's such an odd and surprising reaction.
When I hear, for example, that Linux is being used at a gov site in Brazil or Germany or France - I get quit excited. I like that the FOSS is making inroads in other areas.
With the dominance of Chrome worldwide, I am equally excited that a group of developers from another country are helping push competition in this space, driving home the message of privacy. Mozilla needs it... we all need it for the health of the internet.
These guys have been at this for a while (based on their github page) and have made installers available for the main three OSes. I'm excited to give this a try.
There are, however, perceptions among the Japanese people that their own products are generally off higher quality.
With these kinds of things it's basically, I have no way to differentiate my product, so I'm gonna slap the country flag on it for good measure
In many parts of France, simply displaying the French flag in front of your house is very dangerous, whereas it is perfectly normal for everywhere else.
Most successful French startups move their HQ to US as soon as they can and claim they're a US company.
"Made in France" software is a shame and if you're targetting the global market (not just the French domestic market) no founder wants to advertise that.
Which is a shame because we have a lot of talented engineers in France, it's just that the biggest French software companies are frauds.
I'm pretty sure it is more a question of astonishing level of taxation and the difficulty to rise capital than national pride.
> "Made in France" software is a shame
Any source to back this? I've never read or heard anywhere that a piece of software sucks because it was made in France. I'm pretty sure most people don't care, and those who do (Frenchmen) take it positively.
(Now, this being HN I'm sure someone will cite some counter examples.)
Well they aren't known for software at all, but the japanese are notorious about being sticklers for quality.
If you are US company you don’t have a choice as it is the law.
Mozilla, Google, Facebook, Cloudflare, Signal, all have to respect the local laws.
> If you download Floorp you agree to the <h1>Pricacy Policy</h1>.