November 23 saw the release of Windows95 Japanese version in Japan. It was accompanied by a similar sort of craziness to that seen in the US, and customers rushed at midnight to Akihabara, the high-tech centre of Tokyo, to be first with a copy of Windows95J. Convenience stores and other stores selling daily provisions made their first venture into software sales by stocking packages. Weekly magazine Aera reported that through deft marketing tactics, Microsoft Corp spent no money on Windows95 promotion until the week of the Japanese release: by that time NEC Corp, Fujitsu Ltd, Hitachi Ltd and other major personal computer vendors had already spent one year in Windows-related advertising. Microsoft then started spending its Windows advertisting budget of $42m. Dataquest Japan predicted that 1.5m copies would have been sold by the end of 1995, one million copies through pre-installation on machines to be sold through personal computer stores, and another 500,000 through upgrades and new users. Most of these users are individuals rather than corporates; corporate users are adopting a wait-and-see attitude, expecting to benefit from the price wars between the US and Taiwanese personal computer makers selling into Japan with the DOS/V operating system, and the established Japanese vendors, such as NEC and Hitachi.
