Google Pay users outside of Japan who do not have a Osaifu-Keitai compatible model are waking up to the rude fact that Google Pay does not give them all that FeliCa Apple Pay Suica-like goodness out of the box.
Google Pay Japan is exactly what Android Pay Japan was: a thin veneer over Osaifu-Keitai that confuses the hell out of Android users around the world. A lot of angry users will vent and make up shit that this is a ‘Japan tech’ failure but the reality is that this is simply a Google choice made at Google HQ in the good old USA. Google could have licensed the entire proprietary FeliCa stack like Apple along with proprietary EMV contactless and proprietary MIFARE stacks that they already do, but they didn’t.
My money says it is a market related political choice to keep the JP carriers happy selling carrier locked Android devices. The Android equivalent of the Global FeliCa iPhone has yet to appear.
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