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Just Passing Through
Ninja In Training
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 852
Location: London
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 Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 11:38 am Post subject: I've been a bad, bad boy! |
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I may have mentioned that I'm not the sort to go cock-a-hoop over packaging and extras, although even I can admit that the Haruhi SE's look squee-some.
But I'm not going to blind buy a series at those prices. I need to know what it's like first. Which is what the single discs are for, right?
Except what do you do when the complete Haruhi collection is available for pre-order at £17 from Region 1, out next Tuesday?
I know I'm supposed to support the UK anime industry, but the temptation was too much 
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Damo
Still Alive, but no cake.
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Aperture Science Labs
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:06 pm Post subject: |
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TBH I agree with you, those US collectiosn can be just too damn sweet to pass up.
So I need my wrists slapping too - havn't ordered the haruhi set though but there are many others I have.
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Toraman
Shinigami
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 2101
Location: London
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject: |
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I've been spoiling myself and going for the big sets. I haven't watched a fansub for years, so I'm used to buying stuff without knowing what they're like.
Thankfully it's paid off this time as the show's a good'un imo.  |
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Just Passing Through
Ninja In Training
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 852
Location: London
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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I did it again!
Frankly the UK needs something like Bandai's Anime Legends sets. What are you going to do when you can pick up whole series for £15!!!!
Planetes and Witch Hunter Robin are this week's infidelities.
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Gawyn
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Joined: 09 Aug 2006
Posts: 568
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Just Passing Through wrote: | I did it again!
Frankly the UK needs something like Bandai's Anime Legends sets. What are you going to do when you can pick up whole series for £15!!!!
Planetes and Witch Hunter Robin are this week's infidelities. |
The problem is manifold but starts with the strength of the pound versus the weakness of the dollar. Add to this the difference in the cost of living in the UK and the US. The cost of anime in the US is comparable to the UK so far as Americans buying it are concerned even though we see it as cheap. Couple that with the lead time the US has on us and the probability that a cheaper collection will be available by the time we see some series and you have a problem. Currently there is no model that I can think of where we could reasonably get things much cheaper, where the US price is not exorbitantly high especially given the massively different numbers of people buying anime between the two countries. |
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Damo
Still Alive, but no cake.
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Aperture Science Labs
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Gawyn wrote: | | Just Passing Through wrote: | I did it again!
Frankly the UK needs something like Bandai's Anime Legends sets. What are you going to do when you can pick up whole series for £15!!!!
Planetes and Witch Hunter Robin are this week's infidelities. |
The problem is manifold but starts with the strength of the pound versus the weakness of the dollar. |
that's a poor excuse y'know sure DVD pacific discount can be like 30-40% compared to play's or anime-on-lines 25% but the sets themselves over there are cheap to start with, Witch Hunter Robin's RRP was probbaly around $50.
I've been meaning to snap up WHR myself to be honest, sadly it wont be in time for Ame now unless I get it while I'm there.
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Gawyn
Elite Poster
Joined: 09 Aug 2006
Posts: 568
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Damo wrote: | | Gawyn wrote: | | Just Passing Through wrote: | I did it again!
Frankly the UK needs something like Bandai's Anime Legends sets. What are you going to do when you can pick up whole series for £15!!!!
Planetes and Witch Hunter Robin are this week's infidelities. |
The problem is manifold but starts with the strength of the pound versus the weakness of the dollar. |
that's a poor excuse y'know sure DVD pacific discount can be like 30-40% compared to play's or anime-on-lines 25% but the sets themselves over there are cheap to start with, Witch Hunter Robin's RRP was probbaly around $50.
I've been meaning to snap up WHR myself to be honest, sadly it wont be in time for Ame now unless I get it while I'm there. |
Not at all, economically speaking. While we can buy absolutely loads of US stuff with our pound the Americans can generally buy very little (in the US or otherwise) with their average earnings to the point that they find their own product just as expensive as we find ours. Our cost of living relative to average income is no different to the US. You cannot compare two economies on a like-for-like basis and have to consider the relative values of the currencies involved, vis-a-vis the USD is worth very little when compared to GBP. It is very difficult for the UK market (an import economy where buying product from other countries is more economically viable than buying local produce) to compete with what is essentially a US export economy. |
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beez_andrew
Newbie
Joined: 17 Sep 2007
Posts: 16
Location: Beez-ent.com
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Damo wrote: | | Gawyn wrote: | | Just Passing Through wrote: | I did it again!
Frankly the UK needs something like Bandai's Anime Legends sets. What are you going to do when you can pick up whole series for £15!!!!
Planetes and Witch Hunter Robin are this week's infidelities. |
The problem is manifold but starts with the strength of the pound versus the weakness of the dollar. |
that's a poor excuse y'know sure DVD pacific discount can be like 30-40% compared to play's or anime-on-lines 25% but the sets themselves over there are cheap to start with, Witch Hunter Robin's RRP was probbaly around $50.
I've been meaning to snap up WHR myself to be honest, sadly it wont be in time for Ame now unless I get it while I'm there. |
Well Ame would be a good time for it given as I recall it's in our special offers this time  .
Asides from that it's not a particularly weak excuse when you weigh in the fact that you can expect usually a maximum of between 1000 and 1500 for series which do not already have a sweeping following (i.e. your Haruhi's, Bleach's, and Naruto's etc) - in fact often sales can be less than a full cinema of people!
In the US, while roughly similar percentages of the population are fans willing to buy anime - the size of the population means that number easily grows to 5000-10000 range if you price it low enough. In turn those numbers recoup the costs and make a small profit, but here unless you can guarantee it'll sell 3000+ units then it's a big risk to price it down to £15 per title.
That being said it's not as if we at Beez haven't listened to you - since 2008 when we reviewed matters again and I relayed people's feelings on the matter this was what came from it:
Complete collections:
Assume Play.com is about your equiv of DVD Pacific here as it receives about the same discount rate depending on your distributor.
Stratos 4 - £15.99 on Play.com
Crest of the Stars - £17.99 on Play.com
Gunbuster 2 - £15.99 on Play.com
.hack//Legend of the Twilight - £22.99 on Play.com
Fantastic Children (6 DVDs) - £26.88 on Play.com
s-CRY-ed (6 DVDs) - £37.99 on Play.com
With more to come yet this year along with more collectors edition sets  .
The underlying point is while it's difficult to go back and price down old stock when it cost amount X already to produce thus basically removing any profit from it, we are moving on with new and cheaper release methods for some of our titles while providing premium releases for other shows to test the water on both sides. Although in relation to the older boxsets as l recall most were produced around the time boxsets were still in their infancy in the UK in many cases, while others were out before the price dropping hadn't really yet begun.
So hang in there - while £15 for a whole 24-26 episode series is pretty much unrealistic unless it was a complete failure sales-wise and you need to clear stock - we're working at bringing to as low as possible on our future boxed releases as you can see ^^! |
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Just Passing Through
Ninja In Training
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 852
Location: London
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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It's the exchange rate that's doing it at the moment.
If we were living in a fantasy world where it was a dollar to a pound, then those same boxsets, on discount would be approx £30, which assumes a RRP of between £45 and £50.
Now £50 for a 6 or 7 volume series in the UK would be entirely reasonable, and even comparable to the mass market of television boxsets.
Unsurprisingly, that's where the mass market seems to be heading. MVM's boxsets, and ADV's digipacks retail at around the £50 to £60 mark, while Manga's half season boxsets retail at £25.
It's just global warming, the credit crunch, spiralling fuel costs, and the recession that makes it such a temptation to buy from the US... I wonder how much anime retails for in Zimbabwe...
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Damo
Still Alive, but no cake.
Joined: 07 Aug 2006
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Location: Aperture Science Labs
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:49 pm Post subject: |
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| beez_andrew wrote: |
Well Ame would be a good time for it given as I recall it's in our special offers this time .
Asides from that it's not a particularly weak excuse when you weigh in the fact that you can expect usually a maximum of between 1000 and 1500 for series which do not already have a sweeping following (i.e. your Haruhi's, Bleach's, and Naruto's etc) - in fact often sales can be less than a full cinema of people! |
true true, and I hate to be cold about it and this logic doesn't always work but I'm a beliver in halve your price sell twice as many.
| Quote: | | In the US, while roughly similar percentages of the population are fans willing to buy anime - the size of the population means that number easily grows to 5000-10000 range if you price it low enough. In turn those numbers recoup the costs and make a small profit, but here unless you can guarantee it'll sell 3000+ units then it's a big risk to price it down to £15 per title. |
we're talking £15 after discounts though not as an RRP , I think what I typed earlier I may not have gotten across what I was thinking I was saying, singles discs work out at about £8.50 each after postage your talking about £12. compared to play's £15 (free postage) that's neglegable really,
But taking a line like Bandai's anime legends label is cheap box sets to start with. Take WHR it's $50 / £25 RRP, while somehing like Girls Bravo is $120 / £60 rrp - inline on a equal $-£ ratio with most of the UK's sets.
Ah hell I'll shut up now as I've lost what I'm getting at.
| Quote: |
That being said it's not as if we at Beez haven't listened to you
Assume Play.com is about your equiv of DVD Pacific here as it receives about the same discount rate depending on your distributor.
Stratos 4 - £15.99 on Play.com
Crest of the Stars - £17.99 on Play.com
Gunbuster 2 - £15.99 on Play.com
.hack//Legend of the Twilight - £22.99 on Play.com
Fantastic Children (6 DVDs) - £26.88 on Play.com
s-CRY-ed (6 DVDs) - £37.99 on Play.com
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Why haven't you pimped the online discount prices to death?
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beez_andrew
Newbie
Joined: 17 Sep 2007
Posts: 16
Location: Beez-ent.com
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Damo wrote: | | true true, and I hate to be cold about it and this logic doesn't always work but I'm a beliver in halve your price sell twice as many. |
Personally I agree completely with you on that front but it requires certain other factors to be in place behind the scenes beforehand. So those need to be developed first via distributor channels before that has an effect, so it's more a matter of time than anything really I think.
| Damo wrote: |
we're talking £15 after discounts though not as an RRP , I think what I typed earlier I may not have gotten across what I was thinking I was saying, singles discs work out at about £8.50 each after postage your talking about £12. compared to play's £15 (free postage) that's neglegable really,
But taking a line like Bandai's anime legends label is cheap box sets to start with. Take WHR it's $50 / £25 RRP, while somehing like Girls Bravo is $120 / £60 rrp - inline on a equal $-£ ratio with most of the UK's sets.
Ah hell I'll shut up now as I've lost what I'm getting at.
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Ah I see what you mean now, my misunderstanding on the discount! But still for £25, while that is a direct conversion of the 50 USD in reality it doesn't tally across as that in terms of what a lot of the population of the US would see it as. While £60 is definitely not the ideal nowadays unless it's a premium box set with extras that are appropriate for it, for a standard complete collection like s-CRY-ed they should be available at places like Play.com for < £40 now. More than a step in the right direction at least!
I agree a lot with the Anime Legends label though and we have been aiming more towards it with recent releases as the below shows really whilst longer or more popular series get a premium release in boxset first at least too .
| Quote: |
That being said it's not as if we at Beez haven't listened to you
Assume Play.com is about your equiv of DVD Pacific here as it receives about the same discount rate depending on your distributor.
Stratos 4 - £15.99 on Play.com
Crest of the Stars - £17.99 on Play.com
Gunbuster 2 - £15.99 on Play.com
.hack//Legend of the Twilight - £22.99 on Play.com
Fantastic Children (6 DVDs) - £26.88 on Play.com
s-CRY-ed (6 DVDs) - £37.99 on Play.com
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| Damo wrote: |
Why haven't you pimped the online discount prices to death? |
Believe me - I'm just getting started . |
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Fudce
Forum Ninja
Joined: 09 Aug 2006
Posts: 1046
Location: Birmingham
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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| beez_andrew wrote: | | Believe me - I'm just getting started . |
If you don't pimp them hard at your panel at Ame, you'll be in for a bit of stick here
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Just Passing Through
Ninja In Training
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 852
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:56 am Post subject: |
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Something to note if you're importing Funimation collections. To economise, they've started reauthoring to get more episodes on fewer discs. So a 26 episode season fits on 4 instead of 6 or 7, and a 13 episode on 2.
Might make a difference in image quality that.
http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showthread.php?t=84641
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Fudce
Forum Ninja
Joined: 09 Aug 2006
Posts: 1046
Location: Birmingham
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| Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:40 am Post subject: |
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Fruits Basket is a 26 episode series on four discs, so I see no problem with them going to this now. Actually, unless you watch your anime on an ultra high definition 100" TV and analyse every pixel in every frame (exageration - obviously) then I don't see that this is anything other than advantage.
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UK Anime DVD of the Month Awards
September: Black Lagoon Second Barrage - Volume 1 (MVM)
October: Voting now open! (No Registration Required)
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