UK has generally always loved sony/playstation, although MS is pretty big over here too for reasons that you stated
Pretty surprised they even bothered putting it in Japanese retail stores after the performance of the other two. Still, I guess that's Microsoft for you. Just keep throwing money at a problem instead of fixing it.
Not releasing it in Japan would have pissed off all the Japanese developers, and made them less likely to release games for it (Capcom, Square, Sega, etc).
Don't see how or why. They'd know by now the money they're going to make on XB games is going to be overseas. I wonder if MS have supplied some smaller Japanese developers with kits this time or not bothered. There were a couple of interesting JP only games on the first XBOX.
I think they may have done as there are a few shooters on the way as well as those graphic novel games that the Japanese like to play.
