Japan: The Psychology of a Hardware Launch

The gaming news from Japan: reaction to the launch of PS3, sales predictions, and the job picture at Square-Enix

by Tim Rogers

I was browsing the Xbox 360 fan community for the Xbox 360 console this morning, in which a Japanese gamer living in America posted a picture of himself flashing the middle finger at a PlayStation 3 poster display in a Best Buy store. I saw this photo, and figured: this is as good a place as any to find violently interesting Japanese opinion on the PlayStation 3 launch.

After the first three dozen comments of "GJ" (Japanese Internet shorthand for "Good Job") were out of the way, the community surprised me by asking a thoroughly interesting question: "You know, come to think of it, I haven't seen a single PlayStation 3 advertisement yet in Japan."

The next poster commented on the PlayStation 3's small launch quantities, and concluded that, "Even more than when they launched the PSP, the PlayStation 3's launch is basically just a beta test."

This is a good point. If you'll recall your videogame news of 2004, you may remember a few photos of hundreds of people lined up to buy PSPs at large electronic stores in Tokyo. They had lined up because they were convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that they wanted a PSP more than anything else in the world. The absence of an advertising campaign was a shrewd move on Sony's part. It's not an exaggeration in any regard to say that 99% of those lined up all night to purchase the PSP had already obtained preorders -- in fact, you couldn't GET a PSP back then without a preorder. Why were they lined up? Without delving into the prevotee (that is, "preemptive devotee") mentality too deeply (there's probably a Wikipedia entry on that), we can understand that it's because they just wanted their new game console as quickly as possible.

That, and many of those lined up had simply shown up hoping to be first in line, so Ken Kutaragi himself would hand them their new PSP, and they would be photographed for magazines and interviewed on television. Then they found out that there was already someone waiting, and then figured they didn't want to go all the way back home.

Loved Device

In Japan, home of the massive hardware launch morning line, hardware launches have evolved to a point where the few illuminated prevotees just slightly outnumber the launch quantities. So Sony announces the store that's been chosen to sell the very first console, and the prevotees all choose to buy it there, to get the full buying experience: they'll get to see the president of the company that manufactures their preloved device, in person.

And when they have their system, each individual buyer at that store is ultra-devoted to it for a period of several months. They carry it on the train -- in a city where you have to ride the train everywhere -- and there's a game like Ridge Racer, with 3D cars moving very fast, and a big gorgeous screen in full, backlit color. People keep looking at it. And this PSP owner feels a vaguely parental pride, and does what he or she can to tip the screen in the direction of neighboring passengers. He or she casually, "naturally" poses with the unit, like a three-dimensional, real-time fashion model. This draws attention, though only from people whose attention was swayable in the first place.

In other words, the launch of a device such as the PSP, in Japan, is PR. It's basically "Advertising, Phase Two" ("Phase One" being Tokyo Game Show and coverage in specialist magazines). At the time this phase begins, the unit is sold out in all stores. Yet, in Japan, there's little to no eBay rush (partly because we use Yahoo! Auctions here, not eBay). People will simply learn that the unit is sold out, and slink away. By the time they get home, this bacterial marketing (no, I don't mean viral) has started to spread. The buyer is the hero of their own dramatic motion picture in which a man purchases a product. They saw it and fell in love on the train, they pursued it and were turned away at the electronics store, and now the flame begins to burn.