EDIT: 2chゲーム速報板からの皆様、第二次竹島スレ>>164を読むから来たら、ご迷惑お掛けなく為、>>282を御覧して下さい。
It kinda feels like kicking someone when they're down, even though the streams crossed for a week recently, but still.
In the past couple days, it's come to light that the word "Takeshima", and most variants, are banned from use in Live location, while the word "Dokdo", and its variants, aren't.
What are these words?
There's a particular archipelago between Korea and Japan that's been mostly uninhabited throughout history, but still a part of peripheral territorial claim; the Japanese name is "Takeshima" while the Korean name is "Dokdo". After World War II, its status wasn't officially mentioned in any final treaty; the US government recognized it as Japanese territory, while certain Army officers, during the Korean War, addressed questions concerning it to the South Korean government. Following the Korean War, there was a short, nasty border conflict around the archipelago, resulting in the death of a few and imprisonment of several thousand Japanese fishermen, as well as the sinking of a Japanese Coast Guard vessel.
Currently, South Korea maintains a token military force on the islands, while Japan, with occasional US support depending on the politics of the day, requests ICJ arbitration.
Who cares?
X360 in Japan is selling to the hardcore fanboys. Japanese hardcore fanboys, politically, are a special (in that short-bus way) breed; along with all the social ineptitude, low self-esteem, and marginalization that normally drives youth to one radical faction or another, the Japanese reactionaries have an especial focus on pride, and are the only faction in the country that profess that the militaristic portions of pop culture said fanboys grew up on could be glorious in reality.
Thus, there's a strong reactionary faction amongst X360's target market, who take Korea and Japan's absurd middle brother/little brother rivalry to heart.
Show me.
Nicovideo of an attempt to use it, and a screenshot of the error message ("The word you have entered is not allowed to be used as a location name. Please enter something else.")
Seriously no one cares about this.
It's managed a bigger 2ch thread than "Why isn't Mario Galaxy selling?", as well as a couple thousand comments on a Japanese Fark equivalent, all full of delectable nerdrage.
So, in conclusion, more than anything it's an interesting illustration of how "insignificant" choices probably made by simple expident of someone in Redmond pulling up a Wiki list of disputed territories and banning them all can have a notable PR hit in a major market. Hopefully this doesn't hurt Lost Odyssey too much.
It kinda feels like kicking someone when they're down, even though the streams crossed for a week recently, but still.
In the past couple days, it's come to light that the word "Takeshima", and most variants, are banned from use in Live location, while the word "Dokdo", and its variants, aren't.
What are these words?
There's a particular archipelago between Korea and Japan that's been mostly uninhabited throughout history, but still a part of peripheral territorial claim; the Japanese name is "Takeshima" while the Korean name is "Dokdo". After World War II, its status wasn't officially mentioned in any final treaty; the US government recognized it as Japanese territory, while certain Army officers, during the Korean War, addressed questions concerning it to the South Korean government. Following the Korean War, there was a short, nasty border conflict around the archipelago, resulting in the death of a few and imprisonment of several thousand Japanese fishermen, as well as the sinking of a Japanese Coast Guard vessel.
Currently, South Korea maintains a token military force on the islands, while Japan, with occasional US support depending on the politics of the day, requests ICJ arbitration.
Who cares?
X360 in Japan is selling to the hardcore fanboys. Japanese hardcore fanboys, politically, are a special (in that short-bus way) breed; along with all the social ineptitude, low self-esteem, and marginalization that normally drives youth to one radical faction or another, the Japanese reactionaries have an especial focus on pride, and are the only faction in the country that profess that the militaristic portions of pop culture said fanboys grew up on could be glorious in reality.
Thus, there's a strong reactionary faction amongst X360's target market, who take Korea and Japan's absurd middle brother/little brother rivalry to heart.
Show me.
Nicovideo of an attempt to use it, and a screenshot of the error message ("The word you have entered is not allowed to be used as a location name. Please enter something else.")
Seriously no one cares about this.
It's managed a bigger 2ch thread than "Why isn't Mario Galaxy selling?", as well as a couple thousand comments on a Japanese Fark equivalent, all full of delectable nerdrage.
So, in conclusion, more than anything it's an interesting illustration of how "insignificant" choices probably made by simple expident of someone in Redmond pulling up a Wiki list of disputed territories and banning them all can have a notable PR hit in a major market. Hopefully this doesn't hurt Lost Odyssey too much.
