Word: bandai
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DoCoMo's phenomenal success came in large part because of Enoki's shrewd strategy: make it easy to use, easy to pay for and loaded with gimmicky content to dazzle and entertain Web novices. "The Internet scared Japanese people," says Yukiko Takahashi, a manager at Bandai Networks, a subsidiary of the toy company that gave the world the Tamagotchi virtual pet and created rudimentary games that have been big hits on i-mode. "It made people think about connecting a PC, using a keyboard, modems, ISDN lines, stuff they didn't understand and stuff that cost too much. The smartest...
...Even when an inventor comes up with a hot product, the country's strong ethic of subordination of individuals to groups holds sway. Take the case of Aki Komikado, an unassuming sales-and-marketing employee who invented the Tamagotchi digital pet in 1996. The toy craze earned her employer, Bandai, $350 million, but Komikado didn't get a pay raise or a big bonus, and it doesn't seem to bother her. "Why should I get lots of money?" says Komikado, 32. "The real effort was made by the developers who made our product successful...
...Grinning boys watching steel marbles roll over course that resembles a Disney World ride for reckless ball bearings. Open the instruction book. And -- the horror! the horror! -- it looks like something from J. Robert Oppenheimer's sketchbook. Maybe the words of Johann Stonehouse, national sales and distribution manager for Bandai America, will soothe: "You're not getting your money's worth if it's not hard. It's a challenge. It's a good item for a family project." There! That's it! Family project. Just the thing to work on with the children and perhaps, too, with some holiday...
Past Policies to manufacturers have been "percentile and hoc,"Caton said, citing measure to bail out the floundering Chrysler Corporation. "That approach is like sticking Bandai's on a lackey life boat," he said...