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."

Comments

Right wing zealot mode

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Another example of government thinking that they can artificially manipulate the market.

I'm grateful...

[parasonic]

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.

Revivalization

[Bombula]

"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."

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.