Quote:
Originally Posted by miklos.klaar
This is the predominant ebook format in Japan and the likelihood of it going away anytime soon is exceedingly slim. It will take time to introduce Japanese specific changes to the EPUB.
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It's the format used by Papyless, a retailer whose
150,000-title catalog (half of which are comics) is a bit small by western standards*. Which other major retailers use XMDF? All I could find is that Ebookjapan, which is possibly a rather larger concern, uses a completely different format.
While there is certainly a need to utilise formats that accommodate the needs of the Japanese language while the ePub standard gets its act together, these splintered, proprietary systems are only a stopgap measure. I can understand Sharp developing new devices for the domestic Japanese market, but the tone of the press release and the outlets to which it was sent suggest they have ambitions to bring this to the West, which is a patently ridiculous idea.
*
2 years ago Papyless only claimed a catalog of 8300 titles, so if this number is true then they've been growing a lot.