Xbox 360 arrives in Japan and Playstation 3 on schedule, but no downloads on XBox hard drives

Microsoft will complete the last of its three world-wide launches Saturday in Japan. According to Reuters, this will probably be the least dramatic of the three launches because one of the big launch games in Japan, Dead or Alive 4, has been delayed until after launch. Japan will get premium XBox 360s only, which will sell for 37,900 yen or about $315. Compare that with the 399 euro price (about $472) and the $399 US price. Given that Microsoft is losing somewhere between $126 and $153 per unit at US prices, this price point is clearly aggressive for Microsoft.

Meanwhile, Sony reports that it is on track to launch its Playstation 3 in the spring, despite claims that it would be delayed. Much speculation has been about availability of the new Blu-ray HD drives. But given that Sony has had Blu-ray drives in the Japanese market since April, Pioneer has a drive planned for the market for early 2006, and Panasonic is now making dual-layer discs on its test line in California, that doesn't sound like a big problem at the moment.

Back at home in the US, though, those that actually have XBox 360s here in the US are discovering that Microsoft's digital rights management is a bit heavy-handed. For while the game console can stream music and photos from a networked Windows XP machine, and it can play music from USB flash drives and portable media players, it won't play any MP3s from its hard drive unless you rip them directly to the HD from an audio CD. While Microsoft appears comfortable with the XBox being a media extender, they weren't so keen on it becoming a way to copy music and video.

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