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We
know April as lazy days in Japan and the USA. Sure, there's
brisk activity on the preorder front but overall releases
are dismal. You know it's bad when suppliers scrounge up old
stock from 1998 and 1999 to peddle in their overnight faxes.
These lists consist of games which we (sadly) still have in
our inventory and have little desire to see again. Export
houses also dabble in side businesses around this time,
which they have no interest in but make an effort just to
get some sales and revenue going. This is when we see
trading cards of all kinds, product lines completely
unrelated to the video game market, and even forays into the
Japanese food industry. We enjoy Pocky (Almond Crush
style/flavor) as much as the next queue of fellows but
buying whole cases of Pocky suitable for a Mitsuwa market is
out of our league.
There is some consolation amidst this malaise
however - there's only 10 more days until April 25, when a
wave of 18 new releases for the PS1 and PS2 ship to market.
Until then, we'll weather the barrage of uncommon product
solicitations and humor our suppliers. Things aren't much
better in the USA distribution market but we find that
suppliers here don't experiment as much, thereby limiting
any additional risk. They just weather the storm, waiting
for the sun.
NCS expects two new import releases this week,
as follows: |
