Buried in the news about Microsoft's global launch of the Xbox 360 console starting this November was the revelation that unlike the controversial two-tiered pricing system in the US, where the unit without the hard drive is $300, and the unit with the hard drive and some extras is $400, the Japanese market will get a single configuration-- fully loaded, with the hard drive, for less than $350.

Click "read more" below for a quote from Microsoft's PR department:

From Major Nelson's blog:

I asked some of the PR folks here about the single sku here in Japan..and here is what they told me:

While we're a global business, we take a local approach to our product offerings. Given the advanced broadband network infrastructure and the popularity of games like Final Fantasy XI which require a hard drive, it's no surprise that our research shows that Japanese consumers across all segments overwhelmingly prefer the fully loaded Xbox 360.

I have to admit, this really makes no sense to me at all, unless Microsoft is trusting focus group-generated drivel about the hard drive. Ask people if they want or need a hard drive in their console, and they'll probably have no idea of what you mean or why they'd want it.

Ask them if they want to play Halo and Halo 2 on their Xbox 360, they will answer hell yes. With those two games far and away the most popular Xbox titles ever, and with the hard drive required for backwards compatibility, it seems that Microsoft is betting that either you'll pay more than the average Japanese consumer will for the hard drive up front, or else you'll think you don't need it, and then buy it as an accessory later, thereby spending even more money and helping reduce Microsoft's losses on hardware.

Basically, North American consumers are subsidizing the Xbox in Japan to give Microsoft a chance to erode Sony's market share. It's certainly for the good of the platform, and thus for the good of anyone who's invested in a collection of Xbox games or plans to do so with the Xbox 360. Whether or not people feel good about that is another question.