Prices in Japan

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Wibbs
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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by Wibbs » Fri May 30, 2014 8:38 pm

JulieYBM wrote:
Wibbs wrote:Jeez, that's insane. I suppose that's kind of like the Gurren Lagann equivalent of the Dragon Boxes though, but $500! I'll just stick with the considerably cheaper DVD sets I think.
Gainax had to return to the original drawings and re-scan them for HD, so everything after that also had to be redone. The Blu-ray box still wound up selling over fourteen thousand units.
That's a lot of effort to put into a home release. It would be nice to see that from other studios. That's kind of made me want to go and see Gurren Lagann again, thanks for the info man.
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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by Fizzer » Sat May 31, 2014 11:59 pm

Hmmm... I've just been looking at Japanese Wii U games and they seem to be as reasonably-priced as anywhere else - is that because there's a larger market for video games?

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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by GarrettCRW » Sun Jun 01, 2014 7:59 am

Fizzer wrote:Hmmm... I've just been looking at Japanese Wii U games and they seem to be as reasonably-priced as anywhere else - is that because there's a larger market for video games?
The length and complexity of today's games have probably murdered the rental market in Japan just like it has in America.

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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by VegettoEX » Sun Jun 01, 2014 8:09 am

GarrettCRW wrote:The length and complexity of today's games have probably murdered the rental market in Japan just like it has in America.
You generally can't rent games in Japan. I don't think it's flat-out "illegal" like a lot of people pass around as fact, but it's highly discouraged by the industry and people just don't do it. The second-hand market is still a huge thing, though.
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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by superrayman3 » Sun Jun 01, 2014 9:40 am

VegettoEX wrote:
GarrettCRW wrote:The length and complexity of today's games have probably murdered the rental market in Japan just like it has in America.
You generally can't rent games in Japan. I don't think it's flat-out "illegal" like a lot of people pass around as fact, but it's highly discouraged by the industry and people just don't do it. The second-hand market is still a huge thing, though.
VegettoEX is pretty much on the mark about game rentals in Japan, while it's not entirely banned per se, the rental laws for video games in Japan are a lot stricter compared to America, whereas in America all a rental company had to do was basically buy the game and put it on their shelves for people to rent (unless it's more complex than that) in Japan the only way a rental company could legally rent out games is if they get permission to rent out games directly from the copyright holders (the Japanese were smart enough to add a clause that allowed video game rentals to still be legally possible while at the same time making the process a lot more complicated and restrictive for companies that want to do video game rentals).
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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by UpFromTheSkies » Sun Jun 01, 2014 10:24 am

Anime used to be expensive in the US when it first started coming over here. I remember seeing VHS tapes with about 3 episodes on them selling for $25-$30

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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by JulieYBM » Sun Jun 01, 2014 11:12 am

UpFromTheSkies wrote:Anime used to be expensive in the US when it first started coming over here. I remember seeing VHS tapes with about 3 episodes on them selling for $25-$30
Home videos in general used to be expensive in the US. I'm a wee bit of a whipper-snapper, but back in the day $100 MSRP for Terminator 2: Judgment Day was not unheard of.
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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by rereboy » Sun Jun 01, 2014 11:26 am

JulieYBM wrote:High prices is the only way a lot of these works are going to sell. Does anyone really think something that airs in the middle of the night in a timeslot bought by the production committee to serve as a glorified infomercial for merchandise is going to sell to a mass-audience? This three-part article on Anime News Network does a pretty good job of explaining why prices are high. Lowering the price means having to bet on many, many more units being sold to make up for the loss of money.

High prices aren't much of a deterrent, either. A mainstream work like Dragon Ball receives the majority of its profit from toys, games, or other non-home video ventures (hence why the one new television series since 1997 is a cheaply produced piece of trash, even more so than other daytime cartoons aimed at kids). There is where Mike's "don't rock the boat" comes into play, although perhaps under a different context than he intended. One might think "hey, if it's selling like trash just lower the price-tag!" but in reality that could just begin a negative cumulative effect for the loyal purchasing force. The way things are right now works best: works with small fan bases can support cartoons that otherwise would not be produced because they bankroll the series through spending a massive amount of money on home videos. Instead of buying many units of a cheaply made release you can buy one release of a higher-quality release. This is why the Dragon Ball Kai singles are being phased out in Japan (although in the case of Kai its more so due to the production committee knowing whoever wants this travesty at this point is going to be willing to spend a lot on it).
My country is much smaller than Japan in terms of population and people buy less of that stuff than the average japanese, but cds/dvds/whatever are much cheaper. They sell at those prices because the japanese are willing to pay those prices. If they weren't, the prices would fall, like everywhere else. At most they would just release a few less releases because of it.

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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by JulieYBM » Sun Jun 01, 2014 11:40 am

rereboy wrote:Please... My country is much smaller than Japan and people buy less of that stuff than the average japanese, but cds/dvds/whatever are much cheaper. They sell at those prices because the japanese are willing to pay those prices. If they weren't, the prices would fall, like everywhere else. At most they just would release a few less stuff.
They're willing to pay those prices because they know the alternative is their favorite works no longer being created. Attempts have been made at lowering prices before, there's never a significant jump in units sold to make up for the lower prices.
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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by GarrettCRW » Sun Jun 01, 2014 10:01 pm

JulieYBM wrote:
UpFromTheSkies wrote:Anime used to be expensive in the US when it first started coming over here. I remember seeing VHS tapes with about 3 episodes on them selling for $25-$30
Home videos in general used to be expensive in the US. I'm a wee bit of a whipper-snapper, but back in the day $100 MSRP for Terminator 2: Judgment Day was not unheard of.
Though T2's price was considered stupid since Batman (the first Keaton one) and ET sold in 1989-1990 for $19.99. (Star Trek IV was also priced to sell, IIRC, in part because it had the ad for TNG, which premiered days after its release.) American animation was priced to sell even earlier, as Filmation and RCA/Columbia made stupid money selling two episodes of He-Man per Beta/VHS for $29.95 starting in 1983.

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Re: Prices in Japan

Post by Daimo-Rukiri » Mon Jun 02, 2014 1:02 am

I personally never found the DVD/Blu-ray, and CD prices to be that bad and yea sure more expensive than it is over her but not so expensive I'm about to rip my hair out.
The only thing I'll complain about is $1000+ DVD Box Sets, especially if it only covers a small portion of the franchise!
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