There was once a great post on ready comparing home computers with Japanese counter parts, and how much more expensive they were due to extra memory to hold the

There was once a great post on ready comparing home computers with Japanese counter parts, and how much more expensive they were due to extra memory to hold the alphabet, as well as how unnatural typing was (could only type katakana and latin, still needed more memory than the US version - those kind of things) The authors conclusion was that this turned Japan into a single-use device nation (because a nintendo doesn't need you to type) and the west much more focused on PC's. I think he even went so far as to say the iPod couldn't have been invented in Japan, because it was too dependant on a PC to get music onto it (the article was pre-iphone, or around that time)