Re: wot i want for xmas, magic

[Mech <mech@m3ch.net>]

At 6:58 PM -0800 12/17/07, info at zoekeating wrote:
>oh, i don't really want it for myself. i'm not generally a 
>materialist...but that japanese design cuteness factor, gets me 
>everytime.

The really ironic thing is that while it's just brimming with that 
"japanese design cuteness" (kawaii-ney?), the Japanese themselves 
have never heard of this instrument.  The *only* available "test 
market" is the UK.

Seriously, I was in Japan when this was released to the UK.  I 
figured that in Yamaha's home nation, they'd do some sort of PR or 
something.  Nope.  I asked high and low -- from Kansai to Kanto -- 
and on almost every occasion I ended up having to direct the staff to 
the Tenori-On website.  They'd never even heard of it.  Of course, 
they thought it was pretty darn cool once I'd introduced them to it.

I find this kinda weird, considering that Tenori-On designer Toshio 
Iwai had a pretty decent hit in Japan with his last musical toy, 
Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS.  That's still on the shelves 
over there (which is saying a lot for a video game) while hardly 
anyone outside of Japan has heard of it.  I'd think Yamaha would want 
to capitalize on his prior success, but go figure....

Then I wrote Yamaha themselves trying to get any information on when 
they were going to be introducing it into the Japanese or American 
markets.  Despite multiple different queries, I could never get past, 
"That hasn't been decided yet.  Thanks for asking.  B'bye!"  They 
won't allow their retailers to ship it outside the UK either. 
Aaaaaargh!  :P

        --m.
-- 
_____
"bye-bye empire; empire, bye-bye"