Now you see, that would make sense if the stuff actually got made in Europe. It doesn't, it's imported, distributed, transported and retailed in Europe, rarely designed or manufactured here. And even if it is, this is a global economy, the cost of development (since I was mostly talking about games, cd's and electronic products) is the same whether it is sold in Europe or in the US.Originally Posted by Divinus Arma
What you're saying is basic economic theory of course, and is right to a point, but just can't be applied here. The major extra price rise should be due to taxes (about 20%) and retail wages (transport shouldn't be that much), since the rest of the costs are about the same whether something is sold in the US or in Europe. Now a DS game (just to give a comparison) would cost about $30 in the US and $50 over here (really I'm being cheap here). And just for the record, games are normally in english here, most often with english manuals, so they can't claim it's due to translation costs either. Now let's say the good people at Nintendo sell their game at $20 to the retailers (it will probably be more), that would mean the US company makes about $10 on the game (gross), now the same game in Europe gets sold and, after taxes, gives the retailer about $40, minus $20 for Nintendo, gives the retailer 2 times the amount of money the US retailer is getting. Even if retail cost (wages etc) was double what it was in the US, they'd still have more left then the Americans ! (that is twice as much)
So really, what it boils down to is someone is screwing us bigtime, and for once it isn't the EU or the government (whichever one it is) it's either the retailers or the multinationals (Nintendo in my little example). Either the retailers are selling games with $10 profits a game (hey, it must be something like that with cd's nowadays) or nintendo is charging Europe more for exactly the same product (long live globalization !). I'm just wondering which one it is, though it's probably a combination of the two.
Bookmarks