Seriously ? Anti-American rant ? I say the industry is ripping us off and you turn that into "anti-American" ? WHat's next, calling me a terrorist for making fun of Bush ?

Are you anti-women because you often point out how, according to you, the conjecture is currently catering to them ? I'm anti-bullshit, hedwards, that i am.

Spoken like a man with a solid grasp on the subject at hand.

And as i said before the problem has nothing to do with unit_cost/income ratio and everything to do with RSP's being invariably done at a 1:1 exchange rate . How convinient that the 1:1 exchange rate, currency fluctuations and all, always covers exactly the very variable by product obscene 'extra' costs, no ? Please, you're smarter than that.

XONE, US - 500 dollars
XONE, UE - 650 dollars (500 euros)

Sure, there are factors that could, and would, account for a REASONABLE difference in prices but nothing that can ever account for 30% or even higher hikes. Nothing short of high way robbery that is.

You know what's disgusting ? Refusal to acknowledge that NA consumers are getting a lot of help with their tech related bills from a considerable portion of consumers from all over the world. That's the current state of affairs and since YOU DO benefit from it at least have the decency to wake up.


Because THEY CAN ? Because it allows them to keep a big market big through the offer of favorable prices OVER THERE while offsetting the 'lower' profits from those favourable prices and still make millions on the side with the markups OVER HERE ? Because the people supposedly in charge of looking out for Europe are utter and complete morons ?

Europe isn't that small, you know ?

Off course they won't sell many in Georgia, they likely won't sell many of anything tech related ever there because even with shipping costs it will be a lot cheaper to get it from a neigbouring country, or better yet, from the US.

People all over Europe are going online or relying on friends and relatives to get their tech stuff from the US, stuff that they could buy in places within a half a mile radius of their homes. Why ? Because in a 2000 U$ purchase of a couple of laptops the 1:1 rate represents over 600 dollars (minus shipping costs). I don't think NA folks realize just how much the corrent conjecture 'encourages' Europeans to buy from NA, directly or otherwise, instead of buying on our own countries. Or how much that contributes to sink even more our own economies while fuelling yours.

Look at steam, to bring out an example most are likely to be familiar with. How many purchases do you think go down on the books as NA purchases every year that are in fact paid with European money and sent around as 'gifts' ? How much do you think that skews sales figures by region ?


Then Europe needs to do something to discourage the syphoning out of our business that is turning your large market into a larger market and adding fuel to the unemployment and recession fires in Europe.

Latin America gets these type of prices for consoles as well, the games are generally around $100 apiece too. PS3 is still over $600 here.

Snark points, but obviously I meant as a console game market. Most of mainland Europe is focused on PC and also buy less of this stuff by default, from what I understand.

I'm not really educated enough on the subject to speak to this. I just view the term subsidy to mean they charge more in Europe so they can charge less in the US, which I don't think is true at all. There are a ton of factors going on that make it easier to sell cheap in the US.

You're from Portugal, right? 23% VAT, right? So the correct comparison is:

US - $500
Portugal - $529

So about 6% price hike.

are you implying he can get rid of the vat? lol

What? Of course not. But he's comparing a US price before taxes to an EU price after taxes and saying that nothing can account for the difference. His government is pocketing most of that difference.

now that's disgusting.

i know brazil has massive import tax on consoles. Uruguay also?

oh. Aussie price also include tax as it is illegal to not do it.

iirc us price is sale price, not price before tax

?
no? every state has different sale tax and there second sale tax (i think county?)

quick to the googlemobile! I need to check that!

edit: i stand corrected, but even without tax, it's 13 or 16% difference with US price being lower. If you say that 50 eur is nothing I might smack you in the face because it's 1/4 of an average paycheck here. So, why the price difference?

US sale prices are always before tax. EU prices always include VAT. This accounts for most of the difference.

I'm pretty sure the situation is the same around the whole region, at least going by what friends from Argentina have told me.

I'm not going to waste my time responding to this. You've thrown up a ton of unsubstantiated accusations and if you can't actually substantiate any of them, I have better things to do with my time.

It's not our fault that Europe is such an expensive place to do business compared with the US. Between the much larger number of markets, the increased regulatory influence, restriction on things being sold in one part of the EU or another, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a similar increase in the cost of selling the units over there to the discrepancy in the pricing.

The kind of childish blaming of the US because you an dr.zl are making because your countries aren't well off economically is just plain ridiculous.
50 Euro isn't nothing, but it's hardly unreasonable considering the increased costs of doing business and things like extending the warranties and the larger number of smaller markets that all require their own marketing campaigns in the local language.
Right and the highest sales tax in the US is about 10% or so, and usually it's more like 5% or less.