Ben Hourigan » Microsoft

“No Clamor for Xbox in Japan”

Benjamin Hourigan — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 03:27:05 +0000

Today the Christian Science Monitor has an article about the failure of the Xbox in Japan. There’s some comments there by me, on Japanese tastes and the centrality of the RPG genre to console success there. Gonzalo Frasca also contributed his words to the piece. Despite the Xbox’s apparent failure, Microsoft

“were able to jump into a very closed market and become a major player,” says Mr. Frasca. “Sure, they burned a ton of cash doing it but, still, it is a major achievement.”

Xbox 360: It’s big in Japan

Benjamin Hourigan — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 05:21:03 +0000

Microsoft are busy gearing up for this month’s launch of the Xbox 360 in Japan, hoping to succeed with it where Xbox failed. Since the original Xbox’s sheer size and ugliness undoubtedly contributed to its unpopularity in Japan, putting a giant Xbox 360 on display at the Umeda Hankyu station in Osaka this week may not be the best of ideas, but it certainly is drawing the attention of passers by, including me.

Xbox 360 with miniature security guard… Actually, the 360 is giant…

The giant Xbox 360 from above.

The upper glowing square is a very large HDTV showing trailers of Xbox 360 titles including Perfect Dark Zero. The lower square is a faceplate display.

The giant Xbox 360 from the other side.

Some of the faceplates on display inside the giant Xbox 360.

Microsoft copies Ubuntu logo

Benjamin Hourigan — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 09:04:10 +0000

The MSN Spaces service recently passed out of its beta phase. On visiting the service’s home page, regular readers of OSNews will likely recognise a shocking degree of similarity between the Spaces logo and that of distro-of-the-moment Ubuntu Linux. The similarity is obvious when switching between the Spaces and Ubuntu pages in separate browser tabs. In the sites’ favicons, the three circles representing human heads are in the exact same positions in both logos. There is also a blog within MSN Spaces that has been set up to show Ubuntu’s logo side by side with Microsoft’s ripped-off version. Have a look before Microsoft hears from Canonical’s lawyers.