Nintendo Cracks Down On European Importers

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Gamesindustry.biz article describing Nintendo's attempts to stop European retailers importing Gamecube/GBA games. According to the piece, "..cease and desist orders have been issued to a number of independent retailers by Nintendo this week, demanding that they stop selling imported Nintendo titles and supply details of their suppliers." With handheld titles such as Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire lacking regional lock-outs, and even US/Japanese Gamecube games being playable with the help of Freeloader, Nintendo are clearly worried about imported titles taking away from native European sales, but as Gamesindustry.biz points out, "..the move will prevent [consumers] from playing titles which Nintendo of Europe has failed to release in this territory, such as the highly acclaimed Animal Crossing."

Comments

Nintendo shmucks

[n1ywb]

Did anybody else here get their $20 check from Nintendo for price fixing the NES many years ago? Some things never change.

Why would Nintendo even care?

[AtariAmarok]

Why does Nintendo even care about this?

It seems to make as much sense as the region system, which prevents me from getting DVD's which are only available outside my region.

Re:Why would Nintendo even care?

[Babbster]

They care for a few reasons:

1) Mainstream retailers in Europe aren't going to do a lot of importing because it would damage the deals they get from Nintendo and others when buying high volumes of their games. Therefore, anyone who DOES sell import versions is damaging the market for the mainstream retailers because that means a lot of their customers will have no interest in the game when it's finally officially released.

2) Because Europe is still the "third string" when it comes to video game distribution, some third-party game publishers don't distribute their own games in Europe and let Nintendo or other big companies do it for them. That means that if Nintendo is publishing a game in Europe that, say, Koei published in Japan and NA, Nintendo gets a better profit margin with both the standard royalty and consideration for doing the publishing. If, however, someone imports the Koei NA version (to continue using that example - I don't know how Koei handles their European distribution) it cuts into the eventual profits of the publishing company when it's officially released.

3) Marketing. Interest in new releases is diluted by the fact that people have already played the imports. This is a particular problem in Europe sine more Europeans speak/read English than, for example, than Americans speak/read Japanese. This dilution of interest means that marketing dollars aren't going to help out a game that might not be that good because the word of mouth has already been spread by importers. Note that this reason is the primary factor in DVD region coding because most movies are stagger-released around the world to allow for regionalized marketing, and in extreme cases a movie could be in its first month of theatrical release in India while the DVD has been out for two weeks in the US.

All that being said, I think Nintendo is making a big mistake here. While I understand the goal of making their retailers happy (probably the main reason for the crackdown), they're running the risk of alienating more customers than they already have. Nintendo would do well to work harder on getting their big releases out in both NA and Europe at the same time. After all, nothing they do is going to make the grey market disappear. They'll just force the most visible importers to work more quietly or quit while others come in and take their place.

Who cares?

[lightspawn]

If Nintendo doesn't want us as customers, Sony and Microsoft might.

Re:Who cares?

[metamatic]

Sony has a lot of the same problems, unfortunately.

SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America) often decides that the most innovative and cool games from SCEE are too good for America. e.g. Wipeout Fusion and Dropship were turned down by SCEA, Vib Ribbon for PlayStation was never released, and so on. If you've written yet another FPS, though, SCEA will release it.

Sometimes other companies (like BAM!) have stepped up and bought US distribution rights for Sony's European and Japanese titles. Sometimes not.

I really don't understand why SCEA turns down games that are on sale in Europe, delaying their distribution in the US by months or preventing it entirely. It's not even like they have to translate the game from Japanese.

Latest example: Silent Hill 3. On sale since May in Europe. Why the hell isn't it on sale in the USA? They expect us to wait until August while everyone on the net raves about it. Yeah, that makes sense.

i'm waiting

[fredrikj]

for samir gupta to comment

What's the point?

[seinman]

I don't see the point of this. Either way, Nintendo makes money... right? If they don't sell a game in one market, they still make the money off that game, because people buy it from another market. If anything, importing games help them make MORE money, because people who previously would be unable to purchase a game now can do so through various vendors.

Am I missing something here, or is this a pretty dumb move on Nintendo's part?

Re:What's the point?

[Snowspinner]

Here's what you're missing:

Retailers in Europe want to make money. They make money when they sell things. For instance, games. While it is all the same to Nintendo whether you buy their game in America or in Europe (Barring, of course, the fact that they'd like all of their regional offices to be profitable, and the fact that it's a lot easier to get a sense of where your system is popular if you have some region control), it is not the same to a British game store whether you buy the game in America or in Europe.

So if Nintendo begins having a high import rate, their retailers begin to complain about lost sales. If the retailers get angry enough, they stop stocking Nintendo products at all, because they're insufficiently profitable, and the shelf space could be used for, say, Sony products that sell better.

This would make Nintendo very sad.

Therefore, they have to keep their regional retailers happy, and to do that they have to enforce region-based distribution.

Nintendo is dying

[WildBeast]

What a stupid move, anyway Sony and Xbox will gladly take over.

And now, a short play...

[bluemeep]

Father: "Shucks Timmy, it looks like the order got cancelled."
Little Timmy: "No worries, pop. I'll just download it instead."

Nintendo repeats its past...

[deleted_soul]

Nintendo should stick to two things right now...

Making BETTER games for the Game Cube and
Making BETTER games for the Gamboy Advance (SP)

Nintendo's selection of original games have gone down drastically. If a game is seriously crappy then releasing it in another market is not going to save it. Reguardless of what you do to try and stop import releases.

The market as of this moment cannot sustain another video game war without consequences. If they keep releasing games without content they are going to die. Who needs to buy one game across 3 different systems? Seriously. I sure won't.

Resident Evil can only be done so many times before the series just bloats and dies. Look at what is happening with Tomb Raider. It took them this long to release a Mario Kart game?

Whats the deal with that? Why do we constantly have to be assaulted by truly horrible games and seriously overpriced hardware? Something has to break sooner later.

Re:Nintendo repeats its past...

[devnull17]

Ummm, nice troll?

Seriously, what the hell are you talking about? There's Eternal Darkness, Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Zelda: The Wind Waker, Pikmin, Animal Crossing and Super Smash Brothers Melee. Each of those first- or second-party games is not only Gamecube exclusive, but a system seller as well. Name seven exclusive PS2 titles that justify a system purchase. I dare you. (The XBox has all of one.)

Furthermore, the Gamecube hardware is the cheapest on the market, at $150.

I'm not a Nintendo fanboy by any means. What Nintendo is doing in this case is inexcusable. But you clearly have no idea what you're talking about here. The market can and will endure anything as long as people want to play video games. And as long as Miyamoto is still making video games, I don't think Nintendo will ever be in any immediate danger.

Import is not illegal

[johannesg]

Why exactly does Nintendo believe something illegal is going on? There are no laws that restrict the citizens of Europe from buying in Japan, nor are there any laws that restrict Japanese shops from selling to European clients. If I wanted to order a dozen copies of a Japanese game there is absolutely no problem as far as the law is concerned. Moreover, I have the right to resell those copies in the local market.

Nintendo, on the other hand, is trying to control the distribution channel. I suspect that might just be illegal; it certainly sounds rather monopolistic. Maybe the commission should look into this again, although with their glacial speed we could expect a decision no sooner than 2015.

They're fixing the wrong problem...

[Man In Black]

Instead of preventing Europeans from circumventing Nintendo of Europe, why not make NOE a better choice? If people are buying from America, then why not listen to what they want and provide it?

Instead of staggered releases, just release the game at the same time in Europe, and people won't have to import it... AND they'll be buying from European stores. And why not look and see what's being imported most, and bring it over to Europe if it isn't there already?

Isn't this just common sense? (But then, I guess "instead of making proper copy protection, just creating a law making it illegal in the first place" has been the method of choice here in NA...)

Not Quite True

[Shanoyu]

Actually, you do not have this right in Japan. Several years ago Japanese video game producers lobbied for and got a law which essentially made it illegal to sell used copies of video games at stores. I am not all that familiar with Japanese laws regarding the sale and resale of media, but I believe this restriction also applies to movies.

The reasoning behind the law states that the sale of the video game represents the sale of the video game experience to the consumer, not the media itself. Thus the consumer does not actually buy the video game, but a licence to play the video game which is theoretically still the property of the producer.

This is clearly nonsense, but that is the way it goes with laws, eh?