Japan's Gaming History Now Safe

An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian today has covered the final part of the ongoing saga regarding the Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law in Japan. Thankfully, the law has been almost reversed allowing the continued sale of second hand electrical goods (including games consoles)." From the article: "The Japanese secondhand electrical goods market was officially estimated last year to be worth around £500m ... The government probably hoped the law would go largely unnoticed and bring a variety of benefits. By taking the money out of the secondhand market and injecting it into the market for new goods, regulation (of old products) and revivalisation (of the economy) would be achieved in one fell swoop. On paper, anyway. In practice it was rather different."

Re:Revivalization

[TorKlingberg]

I wonder why they didn't think to apply the same regulation to, say, used cars?

They already do.
The Japanese government is completely controlled by large corporations.

Re:I'm grateful...

[MaWeiTao]

The Japanese are already extremely wasteful. You should see how often they toss out perfectly good mobile phones all in an effort to get the next best thing.

Something as simple as taking home leftovers from a restaurant is unheard of. You could have an entire plate of food left over and they'll look at you like you've got two heads if you ask them to wrap it.

They've already got laws which make it prohibitively expensive to own a car for more than a few years. They're pretty much forced into buying new cars every couple of years.

Even without these laws Japanese are always clamoring after the shinest new product. I bet the Japanese government didn't expect people to have a problem with those regulations. In fact, I'm surprised people were upset enough that they went out and had demonstrations. Good for them, I'm glad to see they did do something about it.

Crazy economics to ban secondhand goods

[Snamh Da Ean]

I can't get over the idea that they seriously considered restricting secondhand markets. Functioning secondhand markets reduce the new purchase price of consumer goods since you can get some of your cash back if you decide to sell; in other words, it makes you more likely to but the new good in the first place. Removing this option reduces the effective demand for the new good, which is contrary to what they were planning to achieve. In addition, the environmental effects of such a policy would have been potentially terrible.

Re:FYI

[earthbound kid]

Um, have you ever been to "Hard Off"? (Yes mods, that's really the name. It's a sister store to "Book Off" and, also amusingly, "Kimono Off.") All they sell there are used electronics and used CDs/DVDs/VHSs. Yet they continue to be in business. Heck, just wander around the oh-so-trendy-now Akihabara section of Tokyo. That place is jam packed with shops selling used monitors, used game systems, used everything electronic. Used video games in Japan sell for pretty close to the original price, maybe minus only $5 or $10. My friend said he got good prices for reselling his games, but I haven't tried, so I can't give you a quote on that. Used games are also in really nice shape, generally, so it's almost worth the high cost.

Anyhow, it's not true that Japanese only buy new stuff.

Re:I'm grateful...

[AnonymousPrick]

You should see how often they toss out perfectly good mobile phones all in an effort to get the next best thing.

I don't know what it's like in Japan - I've never been but I'd love to go!
Anyway, the battery in my cordless phone isn't holding a charge. So I thought, "I'll just go and buy a new one. It couldn't cost more than $10." HA! The battery was going for about $19 - the phone, brand new, costs $17! It actually pays to through the phone away and buy a new one!

Fucking marketing!

Re:Revivalization

[mabba18]

Can somebody quote me the number of barrels of oil, and the amount of electricity, and pollution it takes to make a new car?

Re:Crazy economics to ban secondhand goods

[Anonymous Coward]

But look at the current debate in the trade about second-hand software (games) market in the UK.

• Big Retailer sells game for £35, makes £10 profit, publisher gets £10.
  
• Customer plays game, returns it to retailer for £10
  
• Retailer sells game to new customer while the game is still hot for £30.
  
• Customer plays game, returns it to retailer for £10
  
• Retailer sells game to new customer while the game is not quite so hot for £25.
  

End result: publisher gets £10 and retailer gets £45. The publisher obviously prefers the alternate situation:

• Big Retailer sells game for £35, makes £10 profit, publisher gets £10.
  
• Big Retailer sells game for £35, makes £10 profit, publisher gets £10.
  
• Third customer cannot afford game.
  

In this situation, the retailer gets just £20 but the publisher gets £20. So you can see why the retailers want to cut publishers out of the loop (like far eastern and russian retailers do). After all, why should any of the money go towards development when "the industry" is bricks and mortar shops...

What if you can't afford it?

[Opportunist]

That's where the fallacy comes in. What if you can't afford the shiny new tool? You could afford the old parts (barely, but you could), and they'd probably serve you well, but you simply can't buy the new goodies, lacking money.

In other words, instead of generating low income (in form of tax) for the country, they now generate NO income instead. Great move! You sure the idea came from Japan and not the EC parlament?

But at least it now makes sense why in Cyberpunk novels nobody seems to remember any stuff built before 2020...

Re:Revivalization

[RESPAWN]

Now, now. I think there is a distinct difference between Ricers and Tuners. Ricers are all about the flashy graphics, park bench spoiler, chopped springs (but without a realignment or proper shock absorbeer adjustments), and most importantly, the coffee can exhaust. They may or may not have an imported motor, but if they do it's usually all chromed up and underneath a plastic hood or some crap.

What I would refer to as a tuner would be the ones who actually spend most of their money to increase the performance of their car, irregardless of its looks. That's not to say that it will look like a beater, but those are these are the guys who typically will put the looks of their car last.

But, I may be a bit biased as I know a few guys in this vein, myself included. The suspension on my old project car cost me about 4 times what the actual car cost, and the car looked like crap, but boy could it handle around an autocross or a road course.