Hrm. They specifically declined to state the exact location of the data center. Amazon's Tokyo physical products warehouse is way out in the middle of nowhere

Hrm. They specifically declined to state the exact location of the data center. Amazon's Tokyo physical products warehouse is way out in the middle of nowhere (near/in Funabashi) so assuming they built their own data center, real estate alone may not be the source of the cost delta. It could just be that they priced themselves to compete reasonably with their local "alternatives" (despite the apples/oranges quality of any such comparison).