Xbox Live Error Message Pisses Off Japan

[Combine Hybrid]

In the recent fall update, Microsoft expanded player profiles to include things like where we live. In Japan, if players tried to enter the Japanese kanji for Takeshima ("Bamboo Island"), a group of small islands in the Sea of Japan, the characters were not recognized. Both Japan and Korea claim ownership of the islands: Japan says its part of Shimane Prefecture, while Korea claims its part of North Gyeongsang Province.

The island only has like twenty or so permanent Japanese residents. There are more Korean residents. So maybe Microsoft is just hoping to side-step a very, very controversial issue of which country actually owns the islands by not letting anyone register the Japanese "Takeshima." Well, no. If you typed the Japanese kanji for "Dokdo," the Korean word for the islands, Xbox Live would accept it. That's right, Xbox Live Japan wouldn't accept the Japanese name for this area, but would accept the Korean name for it. And that inadvertently indicates which country Microsoft thinks owns the islands! The internet flipped out with comments over at popular site Nico Video hitting a thousand. Commenters called this "horrible" and "awful." Microsoft has since said it was a mistake in the new update and is correcting the error. The funny part? In the news clip after the jump, the caster continually refers to the Xbox 360 as the "popular" Xbox. "Popular" in America, that is!

http://kotaku.com/gaming/korea/xbox-live-error-message-pisses-off-japan-332304.php?cpage=2

Microsoft's revenge on japan for not buying Xbox360 console.

 

[lePobz]

 

[Cpt Tenacious]

Not sure if this has anything to do with this but last night the Xboxlive servers were down and I couldn't get on untill this morning.

 

[Acepilotf14]

:|
Care-O-Meter:
-3

 

[Ridge]

A while back I was talking with some Microsoft devs, and they said while doing Flight Simulator 2004, they had lots of trouble with some towns in this valley, because both Pakistan and India claimed ownership and MS couldnt decide which country to put the towns in...I think they decided by which nation had the larger percentage of citizens in the towns...

 

[hool10]

I feel dumb because I can't understand this thread. I know about that island because it's kinda like parts of Israel. Can anybody sum this up for me?

 

[99.vikram]

A while back I was talking with some Microsoft devs, and they said while doing Flight Simulator 2004, they had lots of trouble with some towns in this valley, because both Pakistan and India claimed ownership and MS couldnt decide which country to put the towns in...I think they decided by which nation had the larger percentage of citizens in the towns...

The issue is a lot more complicated than that. There's a whole community of Kashmiri pundits who were driven out of the valley through terrorism and abductions.Then there's a sizeable population of Buddhists, especially in the Ladakh area. Then there's the muslim community that's divided on whether to stay with India or try for independence.

Independence is a terrible idea, mostly because Pakistan isn't content with destroying it's own economy and government, and would happily invade any independent state in Kashmir. :flame:

 

[Gargantou]

It's popular in Europe too.. Not just America..

The XB360 that is.