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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."
Another example of government thinking that they can artificially manipulate the market.
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The environmental impact of this law alone made it a preposterous idea to begin with. I'm glad that it was halted. I think that this would have made Japan look really bad in other nations' eyes. They probably didn't want to take any of the US's "credit" in collossal wastefulness.
Wow, that was a winner of an idea. I wonder why they didn't think to apply the same regulation to, say, used cars?
"Revivalization" is a awesome word, by the way.
A-Bomb
"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. " -Yogi Berra
Amazingly true... especially in economics...
I can only imagine that Nintendo must be breathing a sigh of relief having made an entire industry based around the resale of old products.
For those that don't know, here is a little background info:
People in Japan never purchase used electronics, in fact they purchase new electronics at a pace which dwarfs American technology purchases. It's just sort of a Japanese thing... They always want the newest/best/coolest bit of technology.
There are however, many poorer countries around Japan, and there is an amazing market for these used electronics in nearby countries. For some time now there has been a massive organized sale of used electronics to other countries, creating pretty substantial profits.
This could be powered by anything from ebay to organized supply chains.
Basically the Japanese government felt like they could possibly direct some of this revenue to the electronics manufacturers, and increase the sales of new items, therefore promoting growth and new technologies, etc, etc.
The thing here to remember is that it never impacted the Japanese directly, as it is extremely rare for a japenese person to buy a used electronics item for themselves, but rather it impacted them indirectly by making it harder to profit from the resale of items.
Anyone feel free to correct me on this.........
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
Sorry, Donkey Kong. You're just not a draw anymore!!! *brrrliing* Eyyyy, he's still got it!
From TFA: 'Musicians, gamers; add in a large swath of the press citing this law as simply the "worst law ever" and the government had a big problem on its hands.'
No kidding. Essentially, the law made it illegal to buy a used electronic device. The justification was that it would keep "unsafe" devices out of circulation, but that was merely an excuse to force consumers to buy new stuff instead. Japan must have one heck of a corporate marketing lobby!
The good news is that the public outcry forced the law to be struck down before it went into effect. The amazing thing, though, is that anyone (other than corporate CEOs) thought this was a good idea in the first place.
must we citizens fear the power of the officials we elect? I have seen stupid shit like this the world over. Doesn't matter whether it's in the U.S., Africa, Europe or Asia, we all have to deal with it (Notice how I don't mention the Antarcticans. They brought it on themselves. Whatever that means.) We constantly have to fight stupid laws either intended to have a good effect (but on closer inspection wouldn't), or laws simply intended to pad someones pocket. There's NIMBY, astroturfing, you name it. It's a big freakin' tragedy of the commons. Oh well, at least I have the right to openly critisize my government. Oh, wait, I'm only allowed to critisize elected officials if I don't whine. That's a bit open to interpretation. Am I whining now? Nah, probably no)O(&==)(/&[CARRIER LOST]
so, once again, some "sky is falling" environmentalists have beaten down a sound economic stimulus plan. There is PLENTY of room in the landfills for a couple of extra PSPs. Freakin' libs.
I'm glad to see an environmentalist in these boards.
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.
Electric heated toilet seats. Just imagine: Plop! Zap!
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
There have been many attempts (during human history) to legislate the buying, entertaining, and personal preferences of the people. (In my opinion) there haven't been any successful governmental squeezes on consumers (except for things that have to do with REAL safety, etc.).
A Passionate Independent Musician
When oldskool is outlawed, only outlaws will be oldskool.
or... as Charlton Heston said...
FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS!!!!
viva la Colecovision! hahahahah
The 'through' instead of 'throw' actually looked correct the first couple of times I read it!
Aye aye aye! and Oy vey!
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You gotta remember this is a country where they can get away with charging you something like US$5K ( last I knew anyhoo ) to "inspect" your car when it gets to be 5 years old IIRC. We'll know things have changed there when infuriated mobs linch the inspectors and the politicians who created them.
So the Japanese have switched their currency to the Pound Sterling?
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
How can an ongoing saga have a final part?
"The Japanese secondhand electrical goods market was officially estimated last year to be worth around £500m"
OK, but what is that in metric?
I for one am absolutely shocked by the huge number of deaths in Japan caused by old Pong games and Stratocaster guitars!
Please won't somebody save the children!
Banning the purchase of perfectly good 2nd hand items, in order to "stimulate the economy", is a perfect example of "The Broken Window Fallacy". Apparently government central planners haven't taken basic high school level economics:
y
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallac
To sum it up... yes, a person by being forced to purchase brand new TV, instead of second hand TV, does spend more money on the new item than second hand... but it doesn't add more money to the economy. The person might have been purchasing a second hand TV, so that they could purchase a new watch. Or they might have purchased a second hand TV, and then spent the money saved on school books. In order words, they have to do without some other item in order to spend more on the television. And that doesn't even include the hidden enviornmental costs - not only is there poluttion from building the new TV, but now you have a perfectly good old TV that you need to get rid of.
In the link to the discussion of the original law, it explains that game systems that are powered by a removable DC power supply were not covered under the law, though the power supply itself was.
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...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
how is it now safe? it is better than it was going to be, but 1989 still makes it hard to sell 8bit computer and video game equipment...
I have recently found myself in this situation. I decided to move into a bigger apartment with a roommate and since he had most of the necessary appliances, I decided I would sell mine.
The problem was that most of my stuff was aquired from second hand shops (I'm a student, so I live on a budget here) and were easily 5+ years old. None of them had the mandatory PSE mark required to sell them.
Since I would actually have to *pay* to have them thrown away as garbage, I decided to give them away to other newcomer students that didn't have anything.
And I don't see how that benefits the economy.
Shouldn't that be the "can't-keep-an-old-Famicom-down dept." because the NES is called the Nintendo Family Computer in Japan?
Wikipedia Famicom article
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