The Sopranos Complete Series is $177.99 from amazon.com but only around $60 from amazon.de?

Maybe Germans are cheapskates :P

The series is immensely popular in the States, but never got that much traction here in Germany (as far as I can tell - I don't watch TV).

Also, if you buy the box new on amazon.de, you'll pay 145€. The cheaper price is for used copies.

Maybe one of the big electronic shops like Mediamarkt or Saturn has a sale, Amazon normally also adjust the prices in this time. Also are you talking about DVDs or BlueRay? DVDs got lately very cheap here. And then of course popularity - Sopranos are known here, but not as big or popular as in the states. Normally prices for movies are higher here then in the uk and us, but I get the feeling lately we get more sales here.

Edit: Normal price was 60€, now it's 51€. For a whole series with 28 dvds that's indeed a very low price: http://www.snip-me.de/preisentwicklung/Die+Sopranos+-+Die+ultimative+Mafiabox+%5B28+DVDs%5D-a-B005SRQUJU.aspx

It may be even more complicated. Amazon.de has _two_ "ultimative Soprano Mafia boxes" in its catalogue - both encompassing 6 seasons, both having 28 DVDs, but the price differs massively:

Box for 145 €

Box for 50.97 €

Strange.

Different sellers. The cheap one is directly from Amazon, the other from a third party (that chose the price themselves). Maybe it was out of print for a while and they didn't change the prices again?

The boxes itself seems to be different - the cheap one only comes with plastic dvd boxes, the expansive with bigger paper boxes and some additional reading stuff. With 30 discs I guess that the expansive box maybe got also two discs with bonus material. Also some cheap releases don't allow you to disable german subtitles when you switch to another language

Edit: God, the broken edit function is a big problem for me. It seems GOG wants to force me to check and rethink what I wrote before I post it. That's evil!

No, it says you can get it new for 50 euro. http://www.amazon.de/Die-Sopranos-ultimative-Mafiabox-DVDs/dp/B005SRQUJU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350839445&sr=8-1 I just saw your second post, so ignore everything written above this sentence.

No problem, it was my mistake to begin with.

DVDs become cheap here because BlueRay has become the leading medium. Some years ago importing DVDs was much cheaper then buying them here. As example, the Stanley Kubrick box cost above 100€ (I believe it was 110€) here while the uk-import cost me only around 60€ at this time. Now the box cost only around 32€. DVD is a dying medium here.

Well, I think we need more data - extrapolating from one single DVD box to all DVDs seems a bit risky. ;)

Generally I don't have the impression that DVDs are especially cheap here in Germany. At least they rarely reach a price level at which I'd buy them.

But in general, the most likely explanation (imho) are differences in popularity. As far as I can tell the "Sopranos" have been a massive success in the US - whereas here in Germany, they seem to be more of an "Insider" thing.

But isn't BluRay the leading medium here too?

Also, adding to my theory of "regional popularity differences":

According to the German Wikipedia, the first attempt to bring The Sopranos to a German audience simply failed (the series was successively moved to worse time slots because it failed to meet the expectations in each one) and was abandoned after the third season. The second attempt, by another broadcaster, failed as well. It took several years until seasons 4-6 became even available in German, and I think they have never been shown in free TV.

Apart from some aficionados, the series simply isn't very popular here.

Maybe, I don't know ;-) Like Psyringe wrote, It's hard to make a conclusion only based on a few examples here. The funny thing is that today I checked a Mediamarkt flyer and thought exactly the same like you: Gosh, some DVD boxes got really cheap.