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Weak US Dollar Means Nintendo Favors Europe For Now

Posted by timothy on from the aber-vere-ahr-all-zee-deutschmarks? dept.

timeOday writes "The LA Times is reporting that the new Nintendo Wii Fit is hard to find on US shelves, due not only to strong demand but also the United States' declining status in the world economy: '"[Nintendo] is also is shrewdly maximizing its profit by sending four times as many units to Europe, reaping the benefits of the strong euro," says Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities. "The shortage demonstrates one consequence of the weak dollar. We're seeing companies ignore their largest market simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere."'"

23 of 588 comments (clear)

  1. Oh the humanity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I feel like a Canadian

    how long until US quarters get stuck/rejected by Canadian vending machines and laundermat washing machines

    1. Re:Oh the humanity by ozamosi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also, while our European governments steal all our money for taxes, we use it for better things than throwing bombs at some desert...

    2. Re:Oh the humanity by PixelScuba · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wait... your initial point made sense... but your last half is some ridiculous rant against environmentalism. What says we can't save the Spotted Owl AND Increase our industry. We can be environmentally conscious as well as industrially advanced. The problem is that industry is lazy and would gladly steamroll the environment to save a buck.

      I consider myself to be an environmentalist... MOST environmentalist don't say "Don't chop down trees" they say "Chop down what you need and reseed the forest, using technology that limits the impact on the surrounding earth". We can have both strong environmental policy as well as a powerful industry.

    3. Re:Oh the humanity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I can't think of anything better than that.

    4. Re:Oh the humanity by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That is absurd. The US has been running deficit budgets (to pay for wars) and balance of payments for decades. Consumers have not been saving; in fact the rate of savings in the US is negative.

      Other parts of the world with strong economies have IP laws that are just as strong as in the US and are doing fine.

      It is all about unwise fiscal policies that are resulting in the decline of the dollar.

    5. Re:Oh the humanity by Admiral+Ag · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is this a joke?

      In a post that is riddled with historical inaccuracies and plain daft statements, this stands out:

      "Of course, typical Americans; cleaning up after europe shits all over the place. Abolishing slavery."

      WTF? That's a party you were particularly late to (just like both World Wars). You might want to check on the dates for European countries abolishing slavery (hint: generally before you). And as for reinstating civil rights, of course you remember what happened about 40 years ago, right?

      Congratulations on making yourself look like an ass and giving your fellow Americans a bad name.

      --
      "by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
    6. Re:Oh the humanity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Iraq war was at least as pointless as the Vietnam war. Saddam was no threat other than in the eyes of the American public bombarded by the propaganda campaign of the US government.

      If you read Israeli Kuwaiti security reports about Iraq their assessment was; Iraq is essentially a failed state extremely week from a decade of sanctions and poses no security threat.

      Being defenseless is of course a prerequisite for the US to invade as we won't pick on someone that could actually defend themselves (would not be a very productive way to run an empire)

      The worst atrocities Saddam committed was while he was SUPPORTED by the US. This is hugely important piece of information that gets downplayed with "the enemy of our enemy is our friend". But the US was supporting both sides of the Iran/Iraq conflict so there is no moral ground to stand on.

      The problems of Saddam at his worst was he was being supported by an external all powerful military force with deep vested interests in resources of the area, giving him free hand to commit atrocities in the name of "stability" now Iraq has a government in place that commits atrocities in the name of "democracy" with the same power structure. This is not lost on Iraqis. The victims flesh burning white phosphors in Fallujah and the tortured of abu ghraib probably don't care much about the semantics.

    7. Re:Oh the humanity by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Of course, typical Americans; cleaning up after europe shits all over the place. Abolishing slavery, abolishing monarchies, reinstating civil rights and real courts, cleaning up the mess left in the Middle-East by the English (I'd love to applaud the people who drew those maps up, geniuses amongst men they must have been to mix kurds, sunnis, and shias), and defending Europe as much as they could from facists, from communists. Europe abolished slavery first and its citizens generally get more protection where as the US tends to favor business.

      As far as Isreal, I didn't hear the US object to giving them the land and it's the US that defends Isreal these days more than anyone else.

      Going after Iraq for 9/11 isn't cleaning up after Europe. It's making an excuse for Jr to do what daddy didn't do. Though Bush senior, in general, while being called a wimp was more sensible and at least was leaned more to being a sensible republican. It was he who helped make businesses accomodate people with disabilities. Just as Nixon made an attempt to help the environment with creating the EPA.

      Since the Clinton era, the republican party has really gone to hell. In fact US politics in general have gone to hell. That's what's hurting the US more than anything and it makes me glad I've moved out of there years ago.
    8. Re:Oh the humanity by vandan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In Iraq there was a dictator

      Get over it. He was your biggest ally for decades. The fact that you lost control of him is your own stupid fault.

      who testing chemical and biological weapons on his own people

      Bullshit. It was the US doing the testing. Saddam merely used what the US gave him.

      who violated so many UN human rights charters

      So? Go and invade Israel if you're so concerned about UN human rights charters and resolutions.

      And it help fight the slow death of small, often ignored countries like Lebanon

      WTF?

      In vietnam communists wanted to control the country

      That's quite a simplistic view. I forgive you, considering your other way-off statements so far. Communists HAD taken over Vietnam, and had MASSIVE backing from the population. That's no reason to invade and carpet-bomb the place with napalm and chemical weapons ( the same weapons you were just crying about Saddam using ).

      Of course, typical Americans; cleaning up after europe shits all over the place

      Hardly. It's more like MAKING all the shit and expecting everyone else to call it flowers.

      Abolishing slavery, abolishing monarchies, reinstating civil rights and real courts, cleaning up the mess left in the Middle-East by the English

      Oh fuck off. The US was built on slavery, and the remnants of it are still very much alive today. Abolishing monarchies? What do you call George Dubya, commander in chief? What's the point of abolishing something and replacing it with the same thing, but a different name? Why not try some democracy instead? Huh? And as for cleaning up the mess in the middle east, I believe you're FUCKING up the middle east. You must have a pretty warped idea of what's going on over there. You're American, right
    9. Re:Oh the humanity by ccollao · · Score: 5, Insightful

      sort your own backyard first. Please, don't send them to south america again... We are finally doing ok, since the US Army is looking to the other way around. ;)

  2. Bush by Boronx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder if this has anything to do with Bush running up trillions in debt and making everyone hate us?

    --
    Play Command HQ online
    1. Re:Bush by dvice_null · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > All bush did was speed up the process

      That is a very nice way to say "he doubled the national debt within few years".

    2. Re:Bush by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Informative

      I wonder if this has anything to do with Bush running up trillions in debt and making everyone hate us?

      Well look at it this way.

      The government is the only entity that can effectively control the amount of currency in circulation. It is the only entity that can create and destroy money by fiat; it can print currency, it can create funds to lend to central banks, and it can destroy the money it created.

      The government takes money from you every year in April. Someone has to repair roads, pick up garbage, provide for the common defense etc. Asphalt, garbage trucks, and missiles cost money. The government prints this money and spends it. It's all OK because it picks your pocket, pulls out dollars, and destroys them to account for it. And you shouldn't complain because you get to drive on nice roads with no garbage or foreigners.

      What if they didn't take your money? That's what George W. Bush did. He figured you'd like him more if we skipped the part where the money comes out of your pocket and gets burned up in order to close the books on the services you receive from the government. So the money escaped your pocket (or at least your $300 consolation prize did), and suddenly all this money that had been spent paving the roads and collecting garbage was suddenly appearing at Wal*Mart for its second life, and it got spent a second time to buy more garbage, predominantly imported crap from overseas. Basically the government printed crap dollars, we spent them on imports, giving sellers overseas dollars that they promptly exchange for their own currencies. The currency exchange markets are quickly overwhelmed by dollars. These quickly end up parked in immense T-Bills held by foreign banks, who would like to unload them but cannot risk damaging their value by flooding the dollar markets with their own holdings. But the value of the dollar is deteriorating anyway, much to everyone's dismay- because dollars are the most widely held currency in the world. And we owe them to everybody. You see how awkward this is.

      Let's say now you're sitting on a loading dock with 500 Nintendos on pallets. Do you want to turn them into dollars? Heh heh heh heh heh.

      But the invisible hand has a way to correct everything. Maybe someday we can make our own Nintendos.

  3. But... Wii Ain't Fit over HERE! by joocemann · · Score: 5, Funny

    Europeans are already fit! Wii need it here so we can earn our dubba-chee!

  4. Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, the *Wii* sucks because employees at your local department store buy them all up against the agreement Nintendo made with the store?

  5. Re:Language barriers by EvilNTUser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or how about just initially releasing it in English for the vast majority of gamers who simply want to play the game? Even weirder is how the games are delayed even in those European countries that don't get a localized version.

    --
    My Sig: SEGV
  6. With the US dollar this weak... by RealGrouchy · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd have expected the headline to say "Nintento Favours Europe"

    - RG>

    --
    Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
  7. Sorry. US Market no longer leading Europe by PKFC · · Score: 5, Informative

    Turns out Europe overtook the US gaming market for FY2007.

    I hate hearing the whining of the article repeated elsewhere: "We're seeing companies ignore their largest market simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere." That link I just posted says Japan is #1 in sales at $11.5 B USD, Europe is #2 at $11.4 B USD and US only pulled in $10.7 B USD. So companies aren't ignoring their largest market; they're giving the leftovers to the third largest market. Deal.

  8. Re:Heh. by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Methinks you are being sensationalist. If anything, the "recession/depression" that we are going through will stimulate a tide of social-programs that will benefit the overall welfare of the country more than the sales of a few million Wiis could.

    I mentioned the Wiis as signifier, not as a possible spur to economic recovery, and your attempt to distract from the actual conversation by depicting it as anything else is disingenuous at best.

    With that said, a tide of social programs is one possible outcome. It was a possible outcome during the Great Depression, too, but in actuality we never really recovered from that until we began to receive and benefit from economic concessions from Germany and Japan following WWII.

    This time it's hard to imagine where the money is going to come from. I'd like to see the public works projects, but they couldn't even bother to go save people's lives in New Orleans. I'm just not seeing it, sorry. Seriously, where does the money come from?

    You doom-and-gloom predictions of "a lot of sweat to correct it" simply miss the point of what's really wrong.

    I really meant blood, but I didn't want to seem overly melodramatic. On the other hand, blood is the cost of the way we do business today - do you have any idea of what percentage of the shit we buy from China is produced in government-owned-and-operated forced labor camps filled predominantly with people whose primary crime is that they were the nails sticking up the farthest and they needed laborers? People are literally put into labor camps for being Christians... where they make the plastic shit that we hang on our christmas trees.

    Closer to home, though, I really don't see things changing for the better without a major upset. I hope to be wrong.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  9. A Simple Lesson in Global Ecomonic Reality... by flajann · · Score: 5, Interesting
    While there is some truth in what you say -- and reporters make copy by selling "bad news", however they spin it -- the real question is: how weak is too weak? If markets begin to skip selling in the US in lieu of more lucrative markets elsewhere, I really don't see this as a "good thing". The US has lost much of its manufacturing and production capacity to other countries, so there is nothing in place to make up the short fall.

    The US is a war-driven ecomony, which is unfortunate on many fronts, let alone creating weapons and systems that kill innocents en masse -- there's an associated brain drain, and the goods created in most cases have no material use that would enhance wealth -- but rather, these devices are designed to destroy wealth as well as human lives.

    China has manufacturing capability up the ying-yang (no pun intended), and as I've stated before, if they were to choose to stop propping up the USD, the US would have far more to loose than they would. Also keep in mind the Euro markets that they could -- and probably are -- transistion to if they're smart.

    No, I'm afraid this is a different situation. It might be "ok" for the dollar to have *some* weakness from time to time, but you can't tell me it would be fine if the bottom fell out on the dollar entirely.

    --
    Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
  10. Re:Language barriers by vidarh · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I've traveled quite a lot in Europe over the last 25 years, and yet I've never had a problem finding people who speak English everywhere I've gone. Now, if they don't like you they might not want to speak English to you, but the trick to avoid that problem is to not act like an arrogant prick, and ideally to try to speak the local language, however limited your skills are, first. I find trying to speak the local language works everywhere in the world - when you do people tend to fall over themselves trying to be friendly and helpful, and suddenly people put a hell of a lot more effort into speaking understandable English to you.

    It's been 15 years since I last came across anyone in mainland Europe that didn't speak any English at all - a very helpful French shop owner in a tiny town in Provence that, when he realized we were talking past each-other with my limited French, stopped a couple of random people who were passing by his shop and got them to translate.

    On my last proper visit to Paris a couple of years ago it had been 12 years since last time I'd spent any amount of time there (I'd been on a couple of business trips where I spent 3-4 hours in town and then went back to London) in fact, I find it hard to practice my French as contrary to my last holiday there every French person I came across switched to English the second I had problems finding the right word, or butchered their language too much (my French teacher used to say that the one thing you should always make sure to get right in France is the sounds - if you pronounce things correctly you'll get away with almost anything - so far I think she's been right)

  11. Where to begin!? by MisterSquid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your post is so reactionary and simple-minded that it certainly seems to have been written by an American, short on rationality as it is. In fact, in the last day or so /. has had several posts like yours modded up because they say absurd things such as the high cost of oil is due in part to the restrictions on domestic drilling.

    If you think the US economy is in the shitter because of environmental protections you are an embarrassment to the genetic legacy your ancestors have bequeathed you.

    The US economy is in the craphole because of the massive debt that has been leveraged against insolvent debtors. This came in the form of the mortgage crisis and its effects have reverberated and multiplied through the banking system. This has led to a crisis in commercial credit which has taken away the ability of consumers to fuel the economy which further erodes the ability of the banking system to maintain solvency. The causes of the credit crisis caused by the tanking of the mortgage system has not yet finished and we are likely to see much worse before it stops.

    Regarding the offshoring of manufacturing and environmentalism, the real impact of environmental legislation in the United States is not to preserve non-human species, but to protect humans themselves. Look at the places where mining companies, steel refineries, chemical manufacturing plants, and pulp mills have operated and what you'll find are poisoned water tables and insanely elevated cancer rates. Additionally, the relative low-production of minerals from mining is due mainly to evisceration of the lands where valuable resources once existed, not due to the governmental restrictions on development.

    For you to say something like "the tree huggers over her taking so much power" is laughable. Opening all the protected lands in the US would to natural resource exploitation do virtually nothing to fix the GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS let alone the paltry problem of the US economy stumbling against the stronger European economy. The kind of neanderthal thinking that bad economic times can generate amongst people is amazing and your post is an example of such stupidity.

    Environmentalism has not caused the US economic crisis. Bad banking practice has.

    --
    blog
  12. Re:Americans AREN'T skilled (says Toyota) by NFN_NLN · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If I was BMW I'd love to settle back in Detroit; little competition from GM/Ford, tons of skilled workers...

    Queue sound of music stopping to a screech...


    "Toyota has stated it will build a new factory in Canada instead of the US because of concerns US workers are less skilled."

    "Toyota President calls American's stupid"
    http://forums.motortrend.com/70/38630/the-general-forum/toyota-president-calls-americans-stupid/index.html