gryson

The argument is that Sega's global success with the Genesis came from its products - not the marketing (despite what the marketers say). One piece of support for that is that the console succeeded against Nintendo in most territories, despite all being under different marketing leadership and following different strategies.

When the Sega of America marketers were put in charge of product development and stopped relying on Japanese products, they were unable to replicate their success. They followed questionable practices derived from the toy industry (from where CEO Tom Kalinske emerged), such as a heavy emphasis on expensive licensed titles over original franchises.

The chairman of Sega Enterprises was Isao Okawa (founder and president of CSK, majority owner of Sega). The president of Sega Enterprises was Hayao Nakayama.

Console Wars leaves a lot out. For one, Sega of America was in financial trouble as early as the 2nd half of 1993 when revenues nosedived. The company ended up laying off 70% of its 900-member workforce by the end of 1995. Despite having one of the largest game development divisions in the world, it utterly failed to consistently release hit titles (its internal studio, STI, was infamous for having more unreleased than released games).

The CEO of Sega of America, Tom Kalinske, was strongly against marketing the Saturn in North America due to its expected high price tag. He persuaded the parent company to develop and release the ill-fated 32X, and then he put most of the company's resources into supporting it. When the 32X bombed upon release, the decision was quickly made to bump up the release of the Saturn, but Sega of America had almost no software in the pipeline. Ironically, in the end, the Saturn matched the PlayStation in price for most of its life.

A few articles on the topic for anyone who's interested:

https://mdshock.com/2021/04/14/segas-financial-troubles-an-a...

https://mdshock.com/2022/05/09/a-second-atari-shock-the-decl...

https://mdshock.com/2022/08/16/a-cloud-appears-over-sega-of-...

There is no "Sega of Japan."

Sega Enterprises is a Japanese company that founded the subsidiary Sega of America to market its products in North America. Sega Enterprises can trace its origins to Americans such as David Rosen who were in Japan after the war.

Agreed. The author's interpretation is unconventional. 好きです (suki desu) is clearly closer to the English "I like you" than "I love you" in this context.

Japanese people would be just as put off by someone confessing with the loftier 愛している (ai siteiru) "I love you" as someone saying "I love you" in English.

I knew a "pachi-pro" in Japan who explained the basics. He worked a regular job on weekdays and spent every Saturday and Sunday playing pachinko from 10am to 10pm. He said the key was to find a machine that was paying out well, and to be prepared to lose a lot until then. If you walk past a good pachinko parlor before it opens in the morning, you'll likely see a decent sized line of people waiting to get in. They're lining up to get first shot at whatever machine they think is paying out.

This guy claimed he made the equivalent of $20,000 USD per year on pachinko, on average. But that required sitting in front of the machine for 20+ hours a week, and dealing with the stress of occasionally going really deep into the hole when his luck wasn't playing out. It seemed to be more of an addiction than anything.

An important point could be added:

Nintendo and Sega saw their consoles first and foremost as ways to promote their own games, which is where they profited the most. Their business model was centered on their own software. Third party publishers were seen as a necessary evil to be tightly controlled, which is why Nintendo restricted them to just 5 titles a year. The story goes that when Namco first approached Nintendo about publishing on the Famicom, Nintendo was so surprised they didn't even know what kind of terms to offer.

Sony changed all of that by giving publishers a platform where they were welcomed with open arms. Third party publishers no longer had to worry (for the time being) about competing against the platform holder from a disadvantaged position. Furthermore, they didn't have to financially support their rival via licensing royalties.

You're asking for a summary of the entire fields of speech perception and psycholinguistics. A good place to start is the groundbreaking speech perception experiments done at Haskins Laboratories in the 1950s by people such as Alvin Liberman.

The author is addressing front line combatants, not the people in the far more common support roles.

Yes. It's interesting to see so many replies in this thread completely missing the aspects you describe and only focusing on the practical usage of the watch.

I'll also add that bubble-era Japan was full of novelty electronics like this. Companies were investing heavily in R&D, and even if sales weren't great, these kinds of items boosted prestige and reputations for being cutting edge.

Like many professional orchestra members, they likely made much of their income from teaching and other related activities. One of the advantages to being in an orchestra is the recognition it brings in attracting students and gaining employment at summer festivals and universities. However, if the orchestra salary drops too low, it probably isn't worth the time anymore.

A rigger brush is specialized for lines - a "medium round (the pointy but wide-ish one)" is not, and will most definitely frustrate a beginner who is trying to do good consistent line work.

The first rule for choosing a brush should be to choose the correct one for the job. Sure, an experienced artist will have better brush control, but this guide is for beginners.

As others here are pointing out, there are a lot of points here that won't hold up for more experienced artists.

For example, on brushes: "a medium round (the pointy but wide-ish one) is all you need"

This depends entirely on technique and what you want to do. Trying to do consistent, smooth lines using a round brush? Good luck.

Region-locking was optional on Mega Drive cartridges, meaning publishers could choose whether or not to include it on their games. That's why so many Mega Drive games are region free. Sega started to implement it after a certain point on games they published. It could be bypassed with some kind of pass through attachment.

The reason was most likely because they justified their existence (and funding from the parent company) by saying there was a need to adapt the artwork to the tastes of the local market. That may or may not have been true. The reality, however, was that a lot of the artists they contracted with had tight deadlines and were not well-informed about the games they were making cover art for.

I have translated countless interviews and articles from Japanese sources over the past few years on Sega's history, and yes, the whole issue is full of ridiculously inaccurate information.

Here's a thread of some recent info I uncovered about the 32X, for example:

https://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?35945-Japan-exe...

I'm also not sure what you are talking about when you say Japan refused to share information on internal prototypes. Is there actual evidence of this refusal?

I would say nostalgia is just as strong in Japan as anywhere. Nostalgia for the Showa era is a famous one.

The more likely issue is that people are just less prone to uploading copyrighted material due to laws.

As Chris notes in the article, the 1980s "micom" history in Japan is largely undocumented (in Japanese or English), despite being a main part of the foundation of the Japanese gaming industry. There are countless undocumented games from the era, many of them being type-in programs that were printed in magazines. Thankfully, more and more of these magazines are being preserved online nowadays, making discoveries like this one possible.

The Nintendo character Kinopio (Toad) is a play on words:

kinoko (mushroom) +

Pinocchio

Yes, hilarious comments in this thread. Please at least skim the article.

They address the connection between rain and TV time in the article:

>The authors first use data from the American Time Use Survey to confirm the link between precipitation and television watching. The results suggest a strong relationship - a child under age 3 watches an average of 27 additional minutes of television on a day with one inch of precipitation (which is equivalent to a day of heavy rain) than on a day with no precipitation.

What specific problems are you referring to?

A "happy country"? I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. In terms of the cost of having children, though, it is far more affordable in Japan than the US. Almost all childbirth costs are covered by the government, and free nursery school is also provided to all.

The US has a low (and falling) birthrate. Not quite as low as South Korea, but certainly not high by any means.

A lot of people here in the comments are stating that these sandwiches are a scam because the filling is much less than you are led to believe.

That is... true sometimes, but it's also common knowledge among Japanese people, and most people avoid the bad ones. See a pack of three sandwiches at Lawson 100 for dirt cheap? Yeah - avoid those.

And this kind of thing is talked about all the time on the Japanese internet.

Here's a good showcase of sandwich fillings:

https://dailyportalz.jp/kiji/160518196569

Common in towns, although I can't speak for everywhere.

Nothing frightens me more.

The Stroop Effect is the first thing I thought as well. "Mixed signals" like this just increase cognitive load and lead to more errors.

I don't know the current restrictions, but at least in the recent past, there were limitations on the number of foreign-born sumo wrestlers a stable could have. Despite that, the few Mongolians who are able to join a stable are dominating the sport. And I think a lot of sumo fans agree that their presence has been great for sumo. I have seen Hakuho wrestle on several occasions and feel lucky to have witnessed the greatest wrestler of all time. I can't imagine what the current sumo landscape would look like without the Mongolians who have given it so much fresh life. The article is a fascinating read.

There are many studies that document adult immigrants and language attrition. Those who experience the most attrition are the ones who fully integrate - they entirely cease using their native language and eventually shift their dominant language to the new one.

Even then, attrition doesn't result in complete ("true") language loss. First, there is a decline in vocabulary, and eventually a loss of accurate phonology so that native listeners no longer judge them to be native speakers. However, they generally retain the ability to comprehend and communicate in their native language, even if they haven't used it for many years.

The point is simply that it is VERY difficult to completely lose your native language as an adult, assuming it was your dominant language throughout childhood.