Microsoft Accidentally Sides With Korea in Liancourt Rocks Territorial Dispute

Just when you thought you could go a few months without more lame news about the territorial dispute over the Liancourt Rocks:

According to the above report from FTV, a South Korean newspaper recently ran an article boasting about how it had been discovered that Microsoft’s Xbox Live only allows users to register the Liancourt Rocks as their location using the kanji for the Korean name for the islets, Dokdo. When users attempt to enter the kanji for the Japanese name, Takeshima, the system returns an error message saying such a location does not exist. The error message has since been verified by Japanese netizens, many of whom are quite displeased. Microsoft has released a statement saying they are working to update the system and correct their mistake.

How did this happen? It’s really hard to say, but I’m sure there are plenty of conspiracy theories out there. Had the South Korean newspaper not run an article about this “good news,” it would have probably gone completely unnoticed in Japan. While Dokdo has huge nationalistic and emotional value to South Koreans and many might want to list the islands as their online location, most Japanese don’t hold strong feelings about Takeshima and it would be unlikely that many of them would have tried to register it as their Xbox Live location. I’m actually kind of surprised that this story even made the TV news here in Japan.

[In somewhat related islet news, the South Korean government has spent money dispatching election officials to the Liancourt Rocks so that the elderly ultra-nationalist couple living on the island (who probably don't own an Xbox 360) and the coast guard unit occupying a post there can vote in the country's presidential elections. ]

The Overthinker

It’s interesting how Takeshima was flagged as not merely not possible but “inappropriate”. The “human error” referred to – wonder what the ethnic extraction of the erring human is?

However they do have a point. If you are going to set locations in terms of country (eg Tokyo as part of Japan), then despite Japan’s claims to the Rocks, Korea actually has them at the moment. So Microsoft may have had to make a choice. It would be interesting to see how they treat other disputed areas – Kashmir, the Senkaku Islands, the Northern Territories, etc etc etc.
KokuRyu

They may be just rocks, but ownership of the islands has massive implications regarding the economic zones of both countries
sireB

What is the point of lighting the flag up, and them promptly extinguishing the fire. Symbolism lost…
J-ude

I don’t know if it’s an accident; one of the directors of the Xbox platform is Korean, so he might have done it on purpose.

Also, I wouldn’t say that they don’t really care, most simply do not want to bother discussing it, especially if it’s in front of a foreigner, but from what I’ve seen, when it is brought up, discussion on it can get pretty heated. It’s a cultural thing, kinda like how “It’s ok” means “No”.
…

If Japanese really don’t care about Dokdo Islets, why don’t they leave them as that instead of raising this issue saying it’s also Takeshima? But I agree that it shouldn’t be an issue that harm the relationship between other countries although I, being a Korean, don’t care much about Japan.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

It’s not that they don’t care, if asked about it many will probably say that they think the islets are Japanese territory, or that talks need to me held about the islands. That being said, it’s nowhere near as huge an issue in Japan as it is in South Korea: Japanese school children don’t sing “Takeshima is our land” songs, there aren’t dozens of products with Takeshima on them, the prime minister doesn’t make speeches about it. People aren’t being whipped up into a nationalist frenzy over Takeshima, but that doesn’t mean they want to simply throw away their claim to the islets.
ponta

Takeshimia/Dokdo is not as emotional laden in Japan as in
Korea. Most Japanese people just consider it best to leave it to the international court.

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Isa

Koreans “Koreanization attack” to online games are massive.
I think most famous episode is Age of Empires2 incident.
Koreans couldn’t stand that the game contained Chinese and Japanese characters but no Koreans.
They(VANK?) started cyber attacks against microsoft.
At the time, online game market in Korea was expanding, microsoft accepted the Korean claims.
However the Korean expansion pack damaged the whole game because it ignored the time period and power balance.
As the result, all other users eliminated Korean users.
Justin

Better question is who cares…. no one else in the world does.

Microsoft Accidentally Sides With Korea in Liancourt Rocks Territorial Dispute

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