I am unsure what's different with the Pixel 8 [Pro] - most of their products launch with failed strategies worldwide. You can barely buy their hardware products outside of the US and a few European countries and good luck getting meaningful support even in those countries.
128GB for any mid-range to premium smartphone today should be criminal. Yet, the morons at Google chose to include a thermal sensor with no application instead of standardizing at 256GB. These engineers are living in an ivory tower of cluelessness.