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Thread: On-line buying and Japanese overprice games!

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    Angry On-line buying and Japanese overprice games!

    Hey guys, just a little rant and feedback too. Been working with on-line seller for 3 days to get his game lower in price and he finely agrees to the price.Them I come home from work and check my e-mail and he already had change the price, Guess what? Somebody snap up all my hard earn work! Grrrrr...Anyway the other topic is Japanese over price games, They always Say Rare!, Very hard to find! But on most or always have 5 to 8 copy's on-line selling. Yes, I know..Demand! People are paying these prices too, because if its open end auction the price ending is over the buy it now price.I bit the bullet on one game myself and after the auction was over, the picture was still up??? So, I e-email the seller and he said I have more then one copy of this Very Rare game with The artbook..which is very rare too..What the? So are the Japanese riping us off? your take..
    Last edited by PROTOTYPE; 07-13-2013 at 09:01 AM.
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    No.

    If you get ripped off you only have yourself to blame. Also, if people are paying the prices, you can't blame them for charging them.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PROTOTYPE View Post
    They always Say Rare!, Very hard to find!
    Yeah they do, but so do many US sellers. It is very silly, I agree. I dont see how putting RARE in the title with convince someone to make a purchase..

    Ive bought alot of games from Japanese sellers, and I can only assume they have a physical store or good connections for finding older games. Its common for them to have multiple copies and only list one at a time.

    Im curious to what game you are referring to and how much the seller wanted.

    Edit: I will also say this about Japanese sellers. Ive bought almost all my Japanese games and consoles from Japan, lots of stuff. Never have I been ripped off, Never has anything been lost in the mail. Even when Ive bought smaller packages and gone with the cheapest shipping option everything always shows up within 2 weeks, and never damaged.
    I also think that Japanese sellers grade game conditions very well. MANY times Ill buy games that the sellers will describe as 'B' condition, and the games will often be nearly flawless (better than average condition). I very rarely have received cd games with any scratches on them at all. Buying CD games from US sellers is always hit-or-miss. SO MANY times have I bought 'MINT' disc games from US sellers that arrive with scratches.
    Last edited by bb_hood; 07-13-2013 at 12:58 PM.

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    I think you're way more likely to come across an American eBay seller trying to rip people off and exaggerating the quality of their items than a Japanese seller doing so.

    As for the games being overpriced, Buy It Now listings across the board are overpriced, but you can't help what the market dictates for the normal bidding auctions. It is how it is. But overall, I think, in many ways, it's a better time for buying imports than US releases of retro games. Just yesterday I won an auction for a CIB Seiken Densetsu 3 for about $15 shipped. I also recently won an auction for a CIB copy of the second Super Famicom Fire Emblem for roughly the same. How many quality US-released SNES RPGs or adventure games can you buy CIB for 15 bucks? Not many, that's for damn sure.

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    We are not so overpriced here in Japan!

    I start most of my auctions off at 99p unless it is some of the more rare/expensive stuff.

    I have to say that most second hand games that we find over here have been much better looked after than our American or European counterparts - especially the boxed stuff.

    Check out our store: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Tsunami-Video-Games

    Rich

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    Dude dont take ONE PERSON doing something to mean EVERYONE is doing that. Besides, the shipping will make you more pissed off price wise so stay away from international sellers in general.

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    You can't blame sellers for the high price of games. The price of Super Famicom games on eBay, for instance, are upwards of 10 times what they would be in a used game store in Japan. As an example, I bought a copy of cart-only Rockman X2 and X3 as a part of a "buy 3 for 1000 Yen" deal, and those games regularly sell for between $25 and $40 on Ebay. Collectors be crazy. The store I went to had many copies of those games, too.
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    Quote Originally Posted by tsunami.video.games View Post
    We are not so overpriced here in Japan!
    I have to say that most second hand games that we find over here have been much better looked after than our American or European counterparts - especially the boxed stuff.
    Rich
    Living in the US and having bought a ton of JP stuff over the years, I would agree. I've gotten 20-year-old JP games that looked like they just came out of the plastic.

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    I think that the Japanese sellers probably take a bit of pride in their work, at least many of them, hence why they over exaggerate the flaws and what not. Of course there will be some exceptions and bad seeds everywhere, but it could be a cultural mindset difference in play.

    As for games and the prices themselves, I really hate this sort of thread. I live in Taiwan, and sometimes pick up and sell unlicensed original games made independently by Taiwanese companies. To begin, while I may have doubles of some of these games, it can be very difficult to track them down. In addition, then the sellers will insist on charging you mediocre prices at best, because they remember how much it cost when it first came out, and don't want to take a big hit themselves. So by the time we actually get the items, maybe we've invested a nice sum of time and money into it as well. Not always the case, but many times it is, and then this has to be reflected in the price, or it just isn't worth the effort and hassle.

    The notion of all games being cheap and easy to find is, essentially, a myth.

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    Some Japanese games(like some US ones) are over priced but that just means you need to find a different seller. I recently found an import store that sells their games(especially import Xbox/360 stuff) for as cheap as you could buy it over in Japan. I always find it funny that nothing Xbox related(barring a few rare exceptions) sells over in Japan because they mainly like their locally made games and systems but then Japanese sellers will list the same items on ebay and amazon as if they were rare or in demand, even though they are neither. But that never made me upset, it just meant I had to wait to find a better deal, which I did.
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    Quote Originally Posted by The 1 2 P View Post
    Some Japanese games(like some US ones) are over priced but that just means you need to find a different seller. I recently found an import store that sells their games(especially import Xbox/360 stuff) for as cheap as you could buy it over in Japan. I always find it funny that nothing Xbox related(barring a few rare exceptions) sells over in Japan because they mainly like their locally made games and systems but then Japanese sellers will list the same items on ebay and amazon as if they were rare or in demand, even though they are neither. But that never made me upset, it just meant I had to wait to find a better deal, which I did.
    Yup, just need to keep all things considered and shopping around as well always helps.

    As someone else had mentioned a few posts up, if the games are selling for high prices, you can't really fault the sellers for listing them at such prices. So with that said, I guess there are several reasons for the prices, several things to consider and factor in.

    All in all though, if you don't like a price, just wait, and at some point something good will pop up No use getting worried about it - whereas I know some do, I stopped that a long time ago, and just figure that it is what it is.

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    Good deals can still be found,I recently bought a loose copy of super metroid for the super famicom for ¥1,310 shipped.

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    It's not just limited to video games.

    Import music CD's from Japan are very pricey as well.
    That said, the CD's usually have extra tracks as singles don't sell well over there ( or so I've heard ). and for many years, their packaging of both games and Music Cd's were much more detailed.

    Mega Drive games all had full color manuals. On a Genesis, you'd be lucky if just the cover to the manual was.
    Some games I understand why artwork was changed for the North America and Europe. Arrow flash is a good example.
    You're target demo are boys and young men and a anime girl with blue hair on the cover was probably the right choice.
    Also, the mega drive carts were rounded with little vent looking accents on the sides.
    A couple of nice touches that don't enhance the game in any way, but it sure looks good.

    Some covers I'll never understand like the notorious NES Mega Man.
    The Black Box series showing the sprite graphics ( that looked pretty impressive back in the day ), was due to Nintendo wanting to be up front about it's graphics as Atari ( which is still the best cart art I've seen to date ) was less that. Only in North America was this used. For Japan and Europe the box art was conceptual.

    If I have a choice I'll always go for the import version as the Box art and Manuals

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    for the best just look at the SMS USA vs every where else.

    worst box art (if you can call it art) and drab ass cart design and you wonder why the SMS bombed in the states.
    COMPLETED MY USA SMS SET!!!!

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    Quote Originally Posted by bigbacon View Post
    for the best just look at the SMS USA vs every where else.

    worst box art (if you can call it art) and drab ass cart design and you wonder why the SMS bombed in the states.


    No better example.
    Some of them looked like they were drawn by a 4 year old.
    They did have better cases though.

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    I do blame the sellers, essentially its greed. You see RPGs re-listed over and over at ridiculous prices, which is the obvious example.

    When games were new they generally were sold for 100$ or less., with some exceptions. The developers/programmers by their labour produced the games. The people selling now only really bought the game and the only labour they did was seek out the game and acquire it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SeverThe7th View Post
    I do blame the sellers, essentially its greed. You see RPGs re-listed over and over at ridiculous prices, which is the obvious example.

    When games were new they generally were sold for 100$ or less., with some exceptions. The developers/programmers by their labour produced the games. The people selling now only really bought the game and the only labour they did was seek out the game and acquire it.
    And in many many cases, sellers in Japan spend many many hours seeking out those games you mention. I for one can truly say that. Its fair game really.

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    Quote Originally Posted by zakthedodo View Post
    Import music CD's from Japan are very pricey as well.
    That said, the CD's usually have extra tracks as singles don't sell well over there ( or so I've heard ). and for many years, their packaging of both games and Music Cd's were much more detailed.
    Although the difference between prices of Japanese and US music CDs is stark even at launch. With games, if you bought a US SNES game for $70 and a Super Famicom game launched at, say, 7800 yen, there's not much of a difference. None of this matters in terms of used market values years later, though.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tsunami.video.games View Post
    And in many many cases, sellers in Japan spend many many hours seeking out those games you mention. I for one can truly say that. Its fair game really.
    I was pretty much referring to EBAY i.e. online buying. I have no idea about the Japanese market.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SeverThe7th View Post
    I was pretty much referring to EBAY i.e. online buying. I have no idea about the Japanese market.
    Yeah me too. I'm a reseller in Japan. I try and source games over here to sell to all you guys around the world. I don't think people realise how much work actually goes into it on our part, so asking for a few bucks for something isn't too far fetched. I think it is only a few things that are over priced to be honest. And from my point of view, people always get bargains from our store when i'm expecting them to sell for more. Its just part and parcel of eBay.

    For small hobby style outfits it involves trudging around shops, all the associated eBay tasks, cleaning and trips to the Post Office. x 100's depending on how many items there are. I honestly think prices aren't that high compared to the man hours.

    For the big boys like Yamatoku, their operations are much more streamlined, so profits are much bigger - however they still have to pay about 10 employees wages and all the other associated stuff too.

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