RightStuf to distribute all of Gundam in North America

[Vlad Draculi]

Originally Posted by Naiera

It's probably not up to Right Stuf. Turn A only recently came out on BD in Japan, so it'll be held back for as long as the Japanese want, due to reverse importation fears.

I know. And I still laugh at the reverse importation fears comments. I really don't understand that. Bandai is still making their money whether a person buys the set from Japan or America.

ZZ better be BD though because I own the Japanese BDs. I'm not sure I can justify going for anything less in quality, even subtitles.

[Thomas Guycott]

Originally Posted by Vlad Draculi

I know. And I still laugh at the reverse importation fears comments. I really don't understand that. Bandai is still making their money whether a person buys the set from Japan or America.

Because they make even more money which they don't have to share with any additional distributors on merchandise sold in the domestic market at Japanese pricing structures.

[Vlad Draculi]

Originally Posted by Thomas Guycott

Because they make even more money which they don't have to share with any additional distributors on merchandise sold in the domestic market at Japanese pricing structures.

You know what the easiest solution for Bandai (and everyone else) is though? LOWER YOUR ****ING PRICES!!

[Naiera]

If they lower their prices they might not be able to make ends meet. It's never as simple as you seem to think.

[IdeaOfEvil]

Is Rightstuf going to be the only US outlet to get the Origin volume 2 anime? Or is everything else Gundam going to be distributed by them only?

[Thomas Guycott]

Originally Posted by Vlad Draculi

You know what the easiest solution for Bandai (and everyone else) is though? LOWER YOUR ****ING PRICES!!

Sorry, but that's not how the Japanese market ****ing works.

[Asuras]

Originally Posted by IdeaOfEvil

Is Rightstuf going to be the only US outlet to get the Origin volume 2 anime? Or is everything else Gundam going to be distributed by them only?

You can import the regular edition off Amazon Japan for around $52 w/shipping. That is what I did for volume 1, since I didn't care for the big box limited edition.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Vlad Draculi

You know what the easiest solution for Bandai (and everyone else) is though? LOWER YOUR ****ING PRICES!!

They've tried lower prices before, sales don't increase much. They have an inelastic demand for anime.

[Norbie]

Originally Posted by Snarfs

Who knows...maybe they watch all of their stuff on some really jank display. I would be pretty surprised if a bluray looked any better than a dvd on a tube .

I think the whole teach not preach thing should be universally accepted. Otherwise you can just turn people off from ever being involved in any type of community.

How many occasions have we been in when we wanted to punch someone in the nose because they "... can't see any difference between DVD and blu-ray"?

It's hard sometimes..... It's hard......

[Vlad Draculi]

Originally Posted by Naiera

If they lower their prices they might not be able to make ends meet. It's never as simple as you seem to think.

If they lowered their prices, more people will buy DVDs/BDs.

Originally Posted by Thomas Guycott

Sorry, but that's not how the Japanese market ****ing works.

I know. I'm well aware of how it works. I've bought many Region 2 DVDs and BDs.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by Vlad Draculi

If they lowered their prices, more people will buy DVDs/BDs.

Maybe. But maybe not enough to offset the lower prices, so they'll end up making less.

These prices are hardly arbitrary. These companies do research to determine at which price they're likely to make the most profit.

[Nothing371]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Maybe. But maybe not enough to offset the lower prices, so they'll end up making less.

These prices are hardly arbitrary. These companies do research to determine at which price they're likely to make the most profit.

No, if they lowered their prices, people would ABSOLUTELY buy more dvds and blu rays.

Profitability is another thing entirely. and something I'm not concerned about as a poor consumer. Let's not sit here and pretend these distributors are our friends and doing us a kind service. There's no reason to defend them.

The Japanese blu-ray prices are insane and the distributors clearly prey on otaku that are willing to spend much more money on their loving hobby than they should.

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Nothing371

No, if they lowered their prices, people would ABSOLUTELY buy more dvds and blu rays.

Profitability is another thing entirely. and something I'm not concerned about as a poor consumer. Let's not sit here and pretend these distributors are our friends and doing us a kind service. There's no reason to defend them.

The Japanese blu-ray prices are insane and the distributors clearly prey on otaku that are willing to spend much more money on their loving hobby than they should.

To this I repeat myself.

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

They've tried lower prices before, sales don't increase much. They have an inelastic demand for anime.

Ever looked at sales of say Emotion the Best from Bandai Visual or Rondo Robe from NBCUniversal Japan (Formerly Geneon Japan)? These things are rather cheap for their market, and they don't sell very much usually. They rarely ever rank. And heck, lowering prices didn't do that much here.

Geneon learned for example that different price points for singles didn't increase sales really at all. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2009-12-03 And they also learned that lowering box set prices didn't do too much for them either, and they charged $200 MSRP for their box sets, hardly a discount from the singles on two cour shows. Those things actually moved believe it or not.

And now I can bring up this lovely chart from a JETRO report done a few years ago. Singles died in 2010, yet sales decreased A LOT from 2009 to 2010. There are multiple causes, but one that CANNOT be denied is that switching to box sets led to a huge decrease in revenue as sales didn't increase enough to offset lowering prices. Lowering prices=/=Always increases sales enough

[NLScavenger]

I don't know how much this affects Japanese anime sales, but rental accounts for about 50% of the home video sales in Japan.

[svenge]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

I don't know how much this affects Japanese anime sales, but rental accounts for about 50% of the home video sales in Japan.

That's one reason why Japanese retail releases cost so much. Since Japan has much more of an infrastructure for back-catalog BD/DVD rentals, the anime companies don't risk as much of a backlash for high prices since most people can at the very least rent the titles in question.

[Vlad Draculi]

Originally Posted by BigOnAnime

And now I can bring up this lovely chart from a JETRO report done a few years ago. Singles died in 2010, yet sales decreased A LOT from 2009 to 2010. There are multiple causes, but one that CANNOT be denied is that switching to box sets led to a huge decrease in revenue as sales didn't increase enough to offset lowering prices. Lowering prices=/=Always increases sales enough

Sales didn't increase because all they did was price the box sets for what it would cost to buy that set individually.

Going from $50 per volume for 10 volumes to $250 per volume for 2 volumes is the same thing. There was no difference. Just look at the Kamen Rider box sets. They are bringing the, out on BD in 3 sets, for the price of what the series cost on DVD for 12 volumes. Hell, the original series is coming out to BD and that is around $1000 to get all 98 episodes.

The problem is Japan is still in this damn bubble where they think they world hasn't changed since 1995.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by Nothing371

No, if they lowered their prices, people would ABSOLUTELY buy more dvds and blu rays.

Again, people would probably buy more. But you have no idea if they would buy enough.

Originally Posted by Nothing371

Profitability is another thing entirely. and something I'm not concerned about as a poor consumer.

If you could somehow force a company to sell you their product at a loss, they wouldn't be in business for long.

[Naiera]

Does anyone know why people, in general, don't seem to like Gundam AGE? I know it's a little off topic, but I figured I might as well ask in this thread.

I see it has about a 6 on ANN and the Blu-ray volumes seem to get 1.5 stars on Amazon JP. I watched the first two eps today and quite enjoyed them for what they were. I know it's quite kiddie and clean, but it seems to be a nice show. Too bad the Blu-ray prices get rather steep after volume 2...

[Vlad Draculi]

It was a boring mess of a show. It tried to do something unique by covering three generations of Gundam pilots, but it just didn't work because everything felt way too rushed in the long run, which is kind of funny because the show was so damn boring. Not as bad as Reconquista G though. That show was so bad Tomino publicly apologized for it and from what I read, he has been told he is never allowed to work on another Gundam series again.

[Chiyo_chichi]

Has it been mentioned if Cucuruz Doan's Island is on the bluray? I remember reading how Tomino had it cut from the NA DVD release. Even if he doesn't think the episode is up to snuff, I'd still like to have it in HD for completion's sake!