Gyakuten Kenji, Amazon, and Messe Sanoh
Inakoshi Kazuyuki from Messe Sanoh has written on his Famitsu blog about how he is not very happy with Capcom, as Gyakuten Kenji has gone on sale on the 28th and he had found that 3 days ago the Premium edition DSi set was on preorder on Amazon at a 10% discount, which actually meant that the sets were selling for lower than the cost price that he gets the sets at for his shop.
Inakoshi understands that it’s normal for a company to pursue profits, but complains that with Capcom pricing their products in such a way that allows Amazon to sell at below the cost price of what a normal shop gets the same product at, Capcom will basically be killing the existing game distribution network.
Messe Sanoh is a long running shop chain mostly situated in Akihabara and they deal in video games, eroge, doujin games, and doujinshi.
I don’t know if Messe Sanoh has to deal with wholesalers or if they are directly using Capcom’s own distribution network, but I guess in any case it’s probably really tough for small store chains to beat Amazon since Amazon is definitely big enough to negotiate for much lower prices with the makers.
