When the iPhone 3G was releases in Japan on July 11th, eager consumers lined up to buy Apple's latest mega-hyped device, leading many stores quickly sell out of the phone. The iPhone's success, however, has largely failed to live up to that initial buzz, with stock piling up in Apple and Softbank stores.

This is Apple's first go at the Japanese cell phone market. The iPhone's first iteration wasn't available in the country. But while the company faces stiff competition from 10 competing domestic manufacturers, many analysts expected the phone to catch on, thanks to the success of other Apple product in the Japanese market.

The Wall Street Journal notes that analysts have since halved their initial expectations for sales, from 1 million to less than 500,000. The relative lack of success, of course, is due in no small part to the fact that in the Japanese market, the concept of an uncrippled phone is far less novel than in, say, the United States.