Sony's Win a Major Blow for Importers 200
Joan Cross writes "Sony won a battle in the UK Courts over the importing to Europe of Playstation Portables by Lik Sang. They say that 'Ultimately, we're trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards, due to voltage supply differences et cetera'. Of course, the PSP comes supplied with a 100-240v adapter which is safe worldwide. Lik Sang has posted their reaction to the court decision. Could be bad news for those wanting PS3 Consoles on import."
Re:bah, (Score:4, Interesting)
But still, Sony Computer Ent. Europe does lose money, even if Sony Computer Ent Japan doesn't. Mostly because they track their
sales and revunue seperately from each other.
Oh, I agree, it's stupid, but i'm just pointing out the logic of why it's both true and it's stupid.
Re:Control.. it's all about control. And stupidity (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Globalization (Score:2, Interesting)
Problem will be here to stay... (Score:2, Interesting)
In 'The Good Old Days'(tm) this wasn't a problem. Goods, services and the workforce were not mobile - companies could charge according to the local market and achieve the maximum profit for that region. The workforce itself is kept in place because staying put is comparitively cost effective to moving (in both financial and personal sense).
Not anymore. Cars can be bought in Europe and imported over to the UK, Japanese games can be imported to the US. While labour is still relatively static (I aint moving anytime soon) goods are comparitively free to move around and they happily do. They will continue to do so - even with customs intervention (look at drugs).
Higher prices in affluent areas will come under pressure from cheap imports *until* wages in the other areas rise to create an equivalent cost. Companies should stop trying to fiddle with things and just let people buy where they can & want. Unless they're gloriously underselling in one region (more fool them) the effort required to prevent is probably not cost effective.
Who's betting Nintendo offer help with importing. They're doing everything else right...
Re:Control.. it's all about control. And stupidity (Score:1, Interesting)
The reason for this is because traditionally companies either buy or sell distribution rights to items. In the land of consoles we call them 'publishers'. The publishers job is to encourage retailers to purchase copies of a new game. This is usually done by someone that has a relationship with the company. In the UK you want your publisher to have a relationship with games.com, and whatever brick and mortar video game stores there are. In the US you want a publisher that have good relationships with gamestop and walmart. Major titles that launch worldwide on or about the same date usually have a publishing house behind them with global power, other games (such as 'Worms') will come out in Europe long before they get a US release because Team17 has distribution channels in europe, but doesn't in the US.
When people circumvent these publishers by self importing, it makes it a lot riskier for a publisher to do business which hurts large companies like Sony.
Re:Globalization (Score:5, Interesting)
Yup, except it's a 4-way, not a 3-way. Globalization ultimately works around nation governments too; thus, there is little effective oversight on the international level to force fair play on multi-national interests.
For example, there are no international anti-trust or price fixing laws that I'm aware of. This has a signficant effect on pricing as well as penetration (pun not intended), such as allowing established industries (e.g. RIAA and MPAA) to charge emerging markets far less for their products. Meanwhile, established markets pay full price, or artificially higher than what would normally be decided by the market (due to intellectual propery laws i.e. patents, copyright). This is why we see can see the same exact products being sold in the US, Mexico, and China go for far far less in the last 2 countries. US and EU college students see this with book pricing. MS OS pricing in Asia indicates this as well.
iow, in some ways, you are essentially subsidizing what amounts to a product loss leader to establish a brand in up and coming markets. In other ways, you are denying fair competition on those emerging markets when they should be protected; those poorer nations have little choice but to abide due to pressure from wealthier nations. (And I believe this is somewhat similar to one of the arguments made against the $100 PC.)
Conversely, those same laws can be used to deny products in those poorer countries as well. In doesn't make logical sense until you realize that companies don't want this importing to occur back to wealthier countries they are established in (see certain aspects of the pharmaceutical industry, although I think they have a fairer policy than the copyright industry groups).
Re:Globalization (Score:1, Interesting)
Always remember, no company pays corporate taxes their customers pay corporate taxes; if you want low cost affordable products lower your corporate tax rate.
Re:Globalization (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow.
Here in the UK, the general attitude has always been that there's no VAT on necessities, so food, books, and children's clothes, among other things, don't have any (but if you eat in a restaurant, you pay VAT, by the way). I was amazes when a Spanish colleague of mine told me the other day that he had to pay VAT on the house he just bought, but food? That's insane.
Imports always expensive (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Globalization (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, at least you get your health care and medications paid for. Here in the US, we get the high blood pressure from our insane politicians and have to pay for everything by ourselves. Any way you look at it, you lose.
Cheer up though, you don't have to live in Cleveland.
Re:The real news here... (Score:3, Interesting)
Factories can only produce so many per month.
You mean everybody should wait 6 months to a year until there is enough on supply so that you can go into a store and buy one?
So you can build more factories and increase the price per unit because in 6 months there will be less demand, or everyone can wait six months so that everyone gets a fair shot.
If it was up to me I would say sell them one at a time as they come off the end off the assembly line! This applies to the xbox and the wii as well. I want my wii now, not after stock has been built up!
Re:Simple solution..... (Score:4, Interesting)
WTF?!
Sony and Lik Sang are both trying to sell exactly the same damn thing -- PSPs. If the ones sold directly (by Sony) meet the requirements, then the ones sold through a middleman (Lik Sang) do too!
Re:Simple solution..... (Score:3, Interesting)
From TFA:
In his ruling yesterday, Judge Michael Fysh found that Lik-Sang - which offered Japanese PSPs to European consumers via its website - was in breach of intellectual property rights.
Are the European and Japanese PSPs "exactly the same damn thing"? Right down to power adaptor, etc? (Honest question, I have zero interest in the PSP so I don't know) If not, then they're not the same thing, and it's possible that they may not meet the same regulations.
That said, I fail to see how what Lik Sang is doing breaches IP rights - in fact, imho, that's utter bullshit.
Re:Globalization (Score:2, Interesting)
What about other countries? (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, they never released any playstation here in Brazil.
Re:Fixed it (Score:3, Interesting)