In a striking move from Amazon, the online retailer’s branch in Japan has dropped the pretense of international barriers and will now ship video games overseas.
Import gamers who like to play niche Japanese titles that don’t make it to North America now have a mainstream and simplified option to get the games they want in a timely, affordable manner. Before Amazon, they would often have to turn to smaller sites like PlayAsia, so who knows what kind of impact this will have on the import market.
The main issue nowadays is that most video games are already brought to the States. With the exception of some incredibly niche PS Vita dungeon crawlers, we’ve experienced a sort of revolution in how games are sold worldwide. Smaller companies are picking up the slack that the big publishers won’t touch, and even Dragon Quest has a market in North America now.
You know signs are good when that old chestnut fixes itself.
However, no matter how small the import scene becomes, gaining the backing of one of the planet’s largest retailers has made the video game world that much smaller. Go ahead, buy that import copy of Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3. Nobody is going to stop you, not even Amazon. Check out Amazon.jp, and be sure to read it in English, just because you can.
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