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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."
In case people think you're kidding, let me spell it out about the cars. In Japan, every car needs to have an inspection. The older your car, the most frequent and more expensive the inspection. After a while, it costs more to have your car inspected than to buy a new car. Thus most of the cars that you see in Japan are under 10 years old. In America, you still see a fair amount of cars from the 70s and 80s, but in Japan, you just don't at all.
My understanding is that the old Japanese cars are sold to Australia, since they're also right hand drive and relatively close.