Yep -- 'cept this one will stay powered one and screen visible for months on a couple of AA batteries.

Hmmm...Opinions abound, but a short history lesson based on facts would show that Toyota started in 1964 with a truly crappy truck (The spiritual equivalent, perhaps, of the Microsoft MSX...). By 2000 they won the Motor Trend Truck of the year award and sold 100,000 trucks. That was still a pittance compared to what Ford and GM sold, but it made money (More than what MS can say for Xbox's in Japan.). The new Gen2 2007 Tundra is larger than the Ford F-Series, Chevy Silverado, Nissan Titan, or Dodge Ram, and is forecast to sell 200,000 units next year. The Titan, BTW, has yet to reach the 100,000/year mark. To be fair, Ford will sell 900,000 trucks, give or take, in 2006, and Toyota only has about 5% of the truck market in the US right now.

In any case, MS is generally much more liked and respected in Japan than it is in the USA -- They just need to get focused on what the market wants, and lower prices is not the answer. They also need to overcome the mentality that MS only makes software, keyboards, and mice -- Maybe all those 40-year-old Japanese guys buying Playstations remember the MSX?

CheeseGod didn't say that the Japanese buy things because they are disposable -- Either you're reading from the Bush-Cheney playbook on interpreting your data, or you've taken Rummy's position and just plain ignored it. The Japanese, by and large, can't look forward to buying a home, so one result is that they spend a lot -- a helluva lot -- more money on electronic gadgets than Americans or Europeans do. That's all CheeseGod said, and he's spot-on with the observation. I also don't buy the "MS is a foreign company and therefore cannot succeed in Japan" argument at all. MS Japan is by far the largest Japanese software company because their products are, as shown by USD or JPY voted, the most popular products (Note, before I get flamed, that I didn't say "best.") for general use right now. The problem with the XBox in Japan is that it got a rep for crappy quality when it first came out, and (I think more importantly...) the games available on the XBox don't appeal as much to the Japanese consumer as the games that Sony and Nintendo push.

Think about it this way: When Toyota first came to the USA, people were skeptical, but at some point they achieved wide penetration in the market because their products were in general high quality products that served people's needs well. They still made crappy trucks, however, and American consumers like trucks. It took Toyota a while, but they finally started selling products that were more and more enticing to Joe Sixpack, leading to Toyota's impressive performance in trucks now. Microsoft's XBox in Japan is about where Toyota trucks were in the US about 10 years ago. Given the relative speeds at which the two markets move, I'd say that MS has about another 2 years to go at the current rate of change before they have a really popular truck to sell in Japan. In the meantime, lowering prices may get them marginally more market penetration, but given the way that Japanese consumers spend their money on electronics, I really wonder how much more it will be.