Gamespot reports:

TOKYO—Classrooms in Japan wil be getting some Xboxes…but not for the typical purpose of playing games. Microsoft announced today that it will be donating Xbox consoles enabled with video chat capabilities to all elementary and junior high schools in Tokyo’s Suginami ward for educational purposes, starting in late June.

A total of 80 Xbox units will be given out to 44 grade schools, 23 junior high schools, and eight other public facilities in Suginami. Microsoft hopes its donations will help educate the children to become more IT literate. The consoles will let Microsoft teach the students how to use videoconferencing to take online classes, as well as communicate with other Xbox Live-enabled schools.

“Microsoft has been supporting teachers and students to become IT literate in the current education system that is advancing towards the use of IT. Our donation of the Xbox is one of our activities to strengthen the IT environment to schools,” said Microsoft in its press release. “We hope this will become a good model case where TV videoconferencing is used effectively in the education system.”

The original X-box was basically a commercial failure in Japan, and Microsoft is desperate for the 360 to do better than its predecessor. Anyone who attended public school in the US will probably remember Apple’s long-term strategy of selling heavily discounted Macs to the education market so that children would grow up using their product and in maturity favor them over Windows. Can a strategy that failed to work against Microsoft in the past now be employed sucessfully by them?

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