Search for "Playstation homeless" on Google News (in English): China Post, BBC, Virgin.net, Middle East TImes, Hong Kong's The Standard, and The Sunday Times all reported on the presence of homeless men waiting in line for the Playstation 3. No Japanese English-language news sources have picked up the story at this time.
Search for "PLAYSTATION ホームレス" on Google News Japan (in Japanese):Nothing. (Yes, I also tried "浮浪者" and "プレステ" etc.)
Kudos to Kotaku and Brad for reporting that greatly improved the bland narrative that would otherwise have emerged from solely Japanese sources.
Comments (11)
Plenty of hits for "PS3 外国人" though on Google News Japan. The conspiracy deepens....
Posted by Scott | November 15, 2006 1:13 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 13:13
The conspiracy deepens....
so does the esotericism of getting to read/post comments here. it looks like marxy might be going for a fusion of form and content.
Posted by alin | November 15, 2006 1:38 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 13:38
all problems with posting, and reading post are my fault. i updated the system we use. and it messed up marxy's blog. it's being worked on. but it's hard to fix things, that you don't know what is broken.
and,
stop being an ass, or learn to write so you dont seem like one.
Posted by trevor | November 15, 2006 1:47 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 13:47
Our blog is broken and we don't have any clue how to fix it. The fact that we can even still use it is thanks to Trevor's hard work. (Special thanks to Boris as well.)
Posted by marxy | November 15, 2006 5:14 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 17:14
Ganbatte, Trevor!
Posted by Duffy | November 15, 2006 5:22 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 17:22
Plenty of hits for "PS3 外国人" though on Google News Japan.
8 hits to be exact.
Let's look at what we have:
Livedoor News just mentions that there were a lot of foreigners speaking Chinese.
Mass medium Asahi Shinbum says there were "also some foreigners" and show a picture of a white guy in an Ape shirt.
Ascii 24 gets closer to actual reporting: 有楽町では客の6割方を中国系の外国人が占めていたね。それ以外にツアーでヨーロッパから来ている人もいた。周りで日本語ほとんど聞かなかったもんね。店員の誘導も果たして理解されていたのか疑問に思う面が……。混乱の大部分は、このコミュニケーションの不備にあるような。
"At Yurakucho, 60% of customers were made up of foreigners of Chinese origin. And besides them, there were also people who came from Europe on a tour. I barely heard Japanese being spoken around me. I doubt that the staff's instructions were really understood. A big part of the confusion was a deficiency in communication."
So, the pushing-and-shoving was because the foreigners could not understand the announcements. They at least are dealing with the less-than-ideal nature of the Yurakucho launch.
Posted by marxy | November 15, 2006 5:25 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 17:25
I'm just writing my next Wired column, and it'll mention the homeless-in-PS3-queues issue in passing. (That's not the main theme, it's mostly about the law of unintended consequences and the difficulty in predicting tech problems -- like your blog ones!) That gets translated into Japanese and will run in Hotwired Japan next week, so "mainstream Japanese media" will carry it.
Posted by Momus | November 15, 2006 7:25 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 19:25
Wow, Momus. What a selfless post.
Posted by marxy | November 15, 2006 7:59 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 19:59
Momus: actually anticipating tech problems is done each and every day. Its not hard at all, in fact its even predictable with amazing accuracy. Its become a standardized part of risk management. But then again Wired is not a tech journal by any means so its all OK.
Trevor: best of luck in your endeavors.
Posted by Your Humble Janitor | November 15, 2006 8:08 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 20:08
anticipating tech problems is done each and every day. Its not hard at all, in fact its even predictable with amazing accuracy. Its become a standardized part of risk management.
So tell me who predicted that terrorists would be able to make a dirty bomb out of components from 10,000 smoke alarms, then? We're living in a world where some people have better imaginations than others -- and it isn't always the test engineers who come out top in the Uses For Objects tests, you know.
Anyway, my piece is now about the "Four Es": ethics, etiquette, environment and embodiment. My own personal battery of new product tests.
Posted by Momus | November 15, 2006 8:37 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 20:37
trevor, mate, i wasn't really being an arse, though i guess i was displaying a certain australian irreverence - one of our finest national traits, really - which was obviously not appreciated, as is the case most of the time with dzima. i think your kind of response can only reinforce our already strong preconception that americans completely lack the ability to laugh at themselves.
Posted by alin | November 15, 2006 9:46 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 21:46