I mean, pre-order bonuses for the remake of Ocarina of Time (on Switch 2) vary on region: Japan gets bonus art cards, stickers and a paper stand while both the UK and some EU countries gives buyers spiritual stones (France has a wallet) & Canada gets a N64 slipcover for the game. The only thing “universal” for pre-order bonuses is the textured foil cover, other than that: the USA doesn’t have anything unique given to people there.

  • NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.comEnglish
    6·
    19 hours ago

    Japan getting bonuses has been a thing for a long time and not exclusive to video games. I remember having to use less than legal ways to get exclusive songs off CD releases from some of my favorite musical artists because only Japan got those exclusives. And they didn’t hide it either. The CD literally said “Japanese exclusive”.

    The only reason I’ve found is that it’s to encourage Japanese customers to buy the merchandise in their region and not buy outside of it. I’ve heard it had to do with a weaker currency’s valuation in the Yen and so giving them exclusives made it less likely they’d buy from another country to save cash by getting the exact same product. That’s also partly why region locks are a thing to prevent people from buying in a cheaper region.

    • evujumenuk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      18 hours ago

      This may have been the case once.

      Nowadays, buying from Japan as an outsider is in many cases a great way to save money, and has been for a few years now thanks to the, uh, interesting monetary policy coming from the Bank of Japan.

      • NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.comEnglish
        1·
        18 hours ago

        What is that policy? I’m not familiar with that.

        Yeah, I’ve heard that before like the Switch 2 being cheaper than the US and the used market is much much cheaper in price and quality than the US for consoles and games.

        • baines@lemmy.cafeEnglish
          3·
          14 hours ago

          go broke on the international exchange

          tied to an aging population and declining tech advantage (read gone)

          ai response for the starting links

          1. The Currency “Collapse” on the International Exchange

          The Japanese Yen has faced a historic decline, dropping past 160 to nearly 180 Yen per USD. [1, 2]

          • The Debt Trap: Japan’s public debt sits at a staggering 240%+ of GDP. To stop the government from going broke under the weight of interest payments, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has historically had to suppress bond yields. [1, 2]
          • The Exchange Rate Penalty: Because the BOJ keeps domestic interest rates artificially low (around 1%) while global central banks (like the US Federal Reserve) keep rates much higher, investors relentlessly dump the Yen to buy Dollars. Massive, multi-billion-dollar government currency interventions have repeatedly failed to save the Yen because they treat the symptom rather than the underlying fiscal debt. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

          2. Demographics: A “Super-Aged” Crisis

          Japan’s population is shrinking by nearly one million people per year. [1]

          • Nearly 30% of the population is now over 65.
          • The working-age population (15–64) has plummeted below 59%, a postwar record low.
          • This top-heavy demographic means a shrinking pool of workers is being heavily taxed to fund a ballooning social security and eldercare system. It strains the domestic economy and drives record-pace bankruptcies among legacy businesses that lack successors. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

          3. The Tech Advantage: Misplaced, Not Entirely Gone

          The claim that Japan’s tech advantage is “gone” is highly accurate regarding consumer tech and software, but inaccurate regarding industrial B2B technology.