Topic: Is this a good import site?

@TokenGirl I can think of a few right off the bat. My favorite game, Siren 2, was released in Europe but not the states.

@Stuffgamer1: Although the only things I've ever imported from Europe are Battle Royale DVD and Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. Europe just seems less resistant to exporting to the US. Amazon UK sends stuff here, that covers a lot and for games, well... GAME will export to the US, yes it'll be hard to find the more rare games and I wish there was a listing of good imports from Europe online, but what can you do?

@Token Girl: 3-4 weeks to the UK is my experience, ditto for J-List (volcanoes excepted) and I'm cool with that.

@Stuffgamer1: I expect the biggest reason is that, like Token Girl says historically the Europeans are the ones missing out on stuff. Another reason I can think of for not having US-based importers of games/videos from Europe is that you'll need a converter or a multi-standard TV (and the latter are rare and expensive for god knows what reason). Naturally Europeans have multi-standard TVs as the norm - I don't even think you can buy a TV over here that won't display PAL and NTSC out of the box; I expect it's the same in Hong Kong. I imagine shops wouldn't want to deal with ignorant customers complaining their purchases are in black and white or unwatchable!

Yes, the couple games I've bought from Europe were portable games.
With console games, lockout and/or lack of a PAL-compatible TV prevents me from buying them.
I think the lack of PAL-compatible TVs in the US is because of demand.
Just explaining full and widescreen to the public was difficult enough. I can't imagine 50/60hz being any easier.
(and now with DTV set as a replacement... it probably makes the difference less concerning to the non-gamer)

Nowadays, Europe gets LOADS of stuff America doesn't. Disaster Day of Crisis, NPC Pikmin 2, Another Code R, Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, Pic Pic (small third-party title, granted, but I REALLY want that game and just can't get it!), and more I'm not even aware of (like this Siren 2 I'd not previously heard of).

I was reading up on localization rates for NoA last night. Did you know we're barely getting HALF of Nintendo's total Japanese output now? This might not seem shocking until you realize that we USED to get a better percentage than we do now. People complain that Nintendo isn't making new IP's? That's BS...NoA just won't release them HERE!

I did import Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, Colour Cross, and Tingle's Balloon Fight DS on eBay, but that site simply isn't reliable AT ALL for game availability. I really don't see why we can't at least have games for region-free systems (especially handhelds) on popular import sites.

@Stuff: Um, America gets a lot of stuff that Europe doesn't

@lz: What Nintendo-published games have we gotten that they didn't in the last few years? I already listed FOUR that they got and we didn't, and that was just off the top of my head!

EDIT: Okay, I just remembered Excitebots. That's one so far...as good as it is, I'd gladly trade it for those other games, though.

VC and Wiiware mostly. Aside from games made by European devs, Europe has always been last with those. Typically the bigger name titles get released in all regions. Oh, and Europe does not have Excite Bots. Come to think of it, I think NA is the only region with Excite Bots

Yeah...Europe's STILL holding onto Mario's Super Picross (which I've been forced to emulate just to play because APPARENTLY, Nintendo doesn't WANT my nine bucks) and Devil World. They've also had an annoying habit of getting much-wanted games before us recently (excepting Mario Kart), most notably Super Smash Bros.

Anyway, I was talking about retail games to begin with. Y'know, the stuff you can actually import. Or could, if you could find a site on which to do it. Not that this helps us with Wii games unless we import or hack consoles. The entire situation sucks, at any rate.

Yep, region coding really sucks. Grey market importing could be an issue, but honestly I don't see that as a big problem if the release dates are close; besides people who are into importing will import region-coding or not, so why lock the system?

It's a shame that the different Nintendo arms seem to have some kind of autonomy on releases. I think all Nintendo first-party releases should be released globally full-stop, I just don't see why they would only publish a game in one or two territories. Sure some Japanese titles are bit odd (Captain Rainbow), but some creative marketing can go a long way - surely the possibility of greater income on a title offsets whatever modest amount is required to localise it for a big outfit like Nintendo?

@Sean
I guess it's just China Post or customs being slow on my end then. It just seems weird that I'll get packages shipped from the States more quickly than from Hong Kong. It's shipped airmail, so I can't see why it would take 3-4 weeks to get here when I'm basically a 1.5 hour flight away. Maybe customs coming in from HK is busier or more poorly staffed or something.

@Stuffy
Yeah, I hear you with Pikmin 2. I'm hoping they're holding it for release to drum up interest for Pikmin 3 (I thought that would be the holiday title this year, but who knows with Zelda coming out. Maybe Q3 or Q1 next year?) or possibly to fill a hole in their release schedule. They haven't really had one in a while though. Still, seems like too much work to deal with all the conversions for PAL output for me. It's not like I don't have plenty of other games to play in the meantime.

Whoever said Amazon.co.uk ships to the US is wrong. Just tried with Pikmin 2, and they won't. I think it's silly that some items they can export and some they can.

This, they are the best on the net and I will prob continue to use just them, as Ive ordered many, many things from them with not a single problem. They also put their games on sale quite frequently, and you can opt to track the game so if it goes on sale they will email you and let you know so you can but it at the lower price. Its worked for me on numerous occasions. Not to mention the limited few but Ive landed a good many GBA Imports for less than $10 USD, one of wich was Metroid Fusion.

Yeah the sales are really good, I picked up both Captain Rainbow and Akko de Pon! for the Wii cheaper than if they were domestic releases that way.

Wish someone told me that two weeks ago when I paid off my copy of Fatal Frame 4 D:

I'd have shelled out a few more bucks to have the game sooner than two months after I order.

never do cheap shipping with imports.

Heh, guess I learned my lesson.

Eh, I always take the cheap option with Play-Asia and J-List. No regrets, I'm a patient man (still waiting for the PAL release of Williams Pinball Classics over 2 years on!)

To be fair, I really can't complain, since to mainland China shipping is free . They will try to track your package and send you a new game or give you store credit if it's lost. The first time I bought a game, I did have to do that, and customer service was really quick and friendly. Luckily, my game did come eventually, so they didn't need to resend it.

Still beats trying to get stuff shipped here from the States (impossible unless I had a friend or family ship it due to import/export of technology laws), and it would still be more expensive than the markup Playasia gives games, so it's really only feasable if someone's shipping me something anyways. The only other real option here is bootleg copy games, which I don't really want to do (plus won't even play on a DSi, which is what I have with me).

I've also directed folk living in Japan to that site for the same reason (NA imports); thankfully there's not many things exclusive to North America that I'm interested in. In fact were Excite Bots to be announced for Europe I'd likely sell my NA Wii because I pretty much only use it to do NA WiiWare/VC reviews (when asked).