Guitar Freaks ASC From Play-Asia?

TranceDance · 11-26-2007, 09:03 AM

As I'm sure many of you know, Play-asia has the Guitar Freaks ASC listed as being back ordered here:
Buy Video Games for Consoles and PC - From Japan, Korea and other Regions! - Play-Asia.com

Has anyone had any success with finding out when they will/could/might maybe someday be back in stock? When I asked how long it would take for them to be restocked the reply was basically "we're not sure, buy it anyway." With that kind of certainty, it sounds like it could be faster to wait for DJ Dao's GF ASC. Does anyone have better information on when it will be restocked? Or someplace to buy one other than Yahoo Japan?

Opethian · 11-26-2007, 09:13 AM

I dont know if konamistyle has any in stock
but play-asia will attempt to order it for you and if konami has any for order you should get one
I dont think they charge your card if they cant get it, you'll just have to cancel the order if you find it elsewhere

DeusExMachina · 11-29-2007, 11:20 PM

From what I know Konami has already discontinued it. Maybe they just want your money to invest in stocks and return it to u 6 months later when they realize you probably won't be getting it. Lets all just wait for DJ dao to storm one up.

original z · 12-05-2007, 09:19 PM

You can still buy the ASC on the Konamistyle site, so there must be some left. Oddly enough, you can`t buy normal GF controllers.

GA.Mole · 12-05-2007, 09:24 PM

It also says they have no stock. From what I'm reading, they won't make more until they get a certain number of orders in first.

TranceDance · 12-06-2007, 09:12 AM

I would prefer to buy one from Konamistyle, but like everyone else in Japan they get all pissy when you want it shipped outside of Japan. Heaven forbid someone who isn't Japanese wants to give us money. I'm partially convinced that they don't even want to make money with GF ASCs anymore, since they sell for about twice what Konamistyle charges on Yahoo! Japan. If nothing else they could make them and sell them on Yahoo! themselves.

GA.Mole · 12-06-2007, 10:01 AM

Well, I understand why they have it setup the way they do. They can't just make one at a time, because that's much too costly. They have a set minimum that they have to make at a time. They can't afford to make all those controllers if they won't sell, so they make sure they get the orders first. If you know Japanese, you can see they also say you can't cancel an order once placed (another measure to protect them in this regard).

Although the ASCs are popular amongst Bemani players outside of Japan, the incentive to burn a lot of cash on controllers for home is greatly reduced when there are arcades all over the place. And when the arcades have just as good (if not better) quality controllers and much higher quality setups (speakers, screens, e-Amuse) than they could get at home, it makes perfect sense that the ASCs have limited runs in Japan.

TranceDance · 12-06-2007, 10:45 AM

I understand that they don't want to make a bunch of controllers that won't be sold, but at the same their business practice leads to a self-fullfilling prophecy of "we can't sell all of these." They're available only from the Konamistyle website, completely cutting off retail sales and casual players who may not even know they exist since they haven't seen them in stores. They don't offer them for sale on any website other than Komanistyle.jp eliminating international markets, which make up a large part of Bemani's fanbase, and reselllers, which are as big in Japan as anywhere else. There is absolutely nothing preventing them from offering ASCs on the same preorder basis on websites in North America and Europe with an added surcharge for having to print out a shipping label not in Japanese and making the buyer pay the shipping costs. In a worst case scenario the webmaster in each region has to take 10 minutes out of his salaried day to add it to the online storefront and no one clicks on it.

Taking it one step further, the American audience has shown they are willing to support guitar games with the success of Guitar Hero. Furthermore a large portion of that audience purchases a more expensive, more high end guitar from a third party. It is perfectly logical to conclude that at least a few hundred out of those hundreds of thousands would be interested in a guitar game with a vastly superior guitar.

There is also an increased demand from a lower price to be considered. By selling directly Konamistyle would only be charging the actual cost of the guitar - presently US$179.27 - plus whatever extra they would add in for transportation costs. Sales outside of Japan now are being made only to the most hardcore of players due to cost. The last used ASC I saw on Yahoo Japan sold somewhere around 38,000 yen ~ US$341.93. On top of that someone in the states is going to have to pay off a proxy bidding service to actually make the bid since the seller of the auction won't ship it outside of Japan (wouldn't want to print out a shipping label and go to the post office if it would make the item sell for a higher price after all). Once a processing fee, handling fee, domestic shipping fee, bank fee, commission, etc. has been added that's another $60 at an absolute minimum. On top of that shipping from Japan will run another US$50-60, bringing the total to right around $400 for a used controller during the brief periods of time when a buyer is lucky enough to be able to buy one at that price. You'd have a difficult time of convincing me that there wouldn't be substantial demand for the product at half that price if a casual fan could walk into any Gamestop, Best Buy, Micro Center or just about any other store and start playing the game with it. They could even just have one ASC for the demo and do special orders on them.

I'm only looking at it from the standpoint of Konami attempting to maximize their profits. Japanese companies have always been extremely reluctant to do things that will easily make them money (like making their products availalbe to international markets) but not blink an eye at ventures that have little to no chance of returning the investment (like HipHopMania - taking a suburban game and rebranding it for an urban audience or Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - the numbers speak for themselves).

GA.Mole · 12-06-2007, 11:09 AM

They don't offer the controller in parts where they don't offer the game, and why should they? They would have to sell the game first to said audience before they could offer the controller. There aren't as many of us that import the games as you think. What game store would buy controllers for a game that is not available in the region they're located? How could they possibly believe that's a good business decision?

The only point I would say I partially agree with you on is KonamiStyle not shipping overseas. I don't know what their reasoning is on this (I believe there's more to it than just isolationism), but I would order stuff directly through them if they simply would sell to me. Perhaps Sony has something against it? If Konami offered games and controllers to regions other than they were coded for, they would be helping to undermine Sony's region protection. I'm sure they wouldn't be happy about that. Sony has already demonstrated they care about their region protection (see: Lik-Sang).

Zarcom · 12-06-2007, 01:39 PM

SCEA is paranoid..plain and simple. If anything, SCEA should be thankful TOWARDS Japan for letting them use Japan's playstation's products in the first place.

Its all about money, plain and simple.

And besides, there are many alternates for GF now. I just bout an xbox 360 GH 2 controller, it works pretty well, except the neck could be a little bigger. HOWEVER, thats something I plan on doing AFTER my exam.

See yaz bye.

DeusExMachina · 12-06-2007, 02:41 PM

Oh well if its any consolation ill be in living/working japan for 1 year starting march 08. I wouldnt mind shipping stuff over if I have time

Zarcom · 12-06-2007, 03:04 PM

Deuxex: If you come across any GF controllers over there, let us know

.

See yaz bye.

kuroi_ryu · 12-06-2007, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by original z

Oddly enough, you can`t buy normal GF controllers.

Yeah, I noticed that and it sucks because I'm getting a JP PS2 for Christmas and I wanted to order a GF controller.

TranceDance · 12-07-2007, 01:01 PM

@Mogura - My point was not to push controllers where they don't sell the games, but to instead revoke Acclaims's license on their technology and push GF in markets that have already taken to GH. They could license US songs for a localized version just as easily as GH has done. Not that it would do anything for me, since I personally find the music in GF to be vastly superior.

@ryuk1 - This is the only place to get a KOC that I know about:
GUITAR FREAKS CONTROLLER OFFICIAL KONAMI PS2 - (eBay item 180190023058 end time Jan-04-08 23:26:58 PST)

Oddly enough Play-Asia isn't even pretending that they can order ASCs anymore, so it looks like Doa's ASC will become the only option for GF controllers once those KOCs are gone.

kuroi_ryu · 12-07-2007, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TranceDance

@ryuk1 - This is the only place to get a KOC that I know about:
GUITAR FREAKS CONTROLLER OFFICIAL KONAMI PS2 - (eBay item 180190023058 end time Jan-04-08 23:26:58 PST)

I don't really want to order from e-bay, so I guess I'll have wait for the next GF/DM CS when they make more KOCs.