NEWS General Updates

Konami Sale - TGS 2010 «©NCSX» Konami of Japan sent out a console software sale listing last night to mark the start of the Tokyo Game Show 2010. The discount percentage is at standard wholesale but the surprise was that Konamii is still holding inventory from as early as 1999. For example, they still have the original Playstation DDR dancing controller (SKU: RU039) from March 14, 1999. We thought we were the only ones who sat on inventory for decades.    We've uploaded the Excel file to our server if anyone's interested in looking over what's available and to peruse the kind of sales and offers we go through every morning. Please note the text is mostly in Japanese. If you look at line item #24, you'll notice that Konami's still holding inventory of beatmania DX16 EMPRESS + PREMIUM BEST and if you scroll down to line item #83, that's Gradius Gaiden for the PS1 from November 19, 1999.

Pokemon Shenanigans    Nintendo's distribution arrangement limited the amount of Pokemon Black and Pokemon White that was available to third party distributors this week. This inventory arrangement basically gives priority to the large retailers in Japan such as Sofmap and Lawson so that they garner the bulk of this weekend's Pokemon sales. The sales are expected to be immense. If you're a mom n' pop shop in Japan competing against the big boys, you're screwed by these types of arrangements.    The Pokemon distribution limitation only lasts for a few days but the damage is severe to small shops in Japan. Why would a customer go to Ma & Pa Gameshop who are only getting a few copies this week when Softmap will have enough Pokemon for everyone on Saturday? If you're privy to the inventory numbers in the distribution channel, you'll see that there's about 3,000 copies of Pokemon being offered for sale but they're only for delivery next week. This weekend is for the big shops in Japan to sell Pokemon before the mom 'n pop shops get their full order quantities of the games. What's the lesson for this week? Don't be a mom 'n pop shop in Japan.