| Imports |
DC
Imports
One new Dreamcast import, Climax Landers, arrived this
morning. Hurricane Floyd proved problematic last week and much of our freight was delayed
due to poor weather conditions on the East Coast. The second DC import, Pop 'n
Music 2 is expected tomorrow. Espion-Agents will ship tonight
and NCS expects to take delivery on Thursday. |
| Climax Landers |
Sega |
US$50 |
| - |
Playstation
Bio-Hazard 3 is expected on Wednesday. A number of restock shipments have
been delayed in transit but we expect to take delivery on Wednesday or Thursday as well. |
| - |
Playstation
2 Pricing Speculation
Pre-order requests for the PS2 resumed in earnest last week after Sony
announced further details on their upcoming console. The most common question that NCS has
received concerns the final retail price for the PS2. Will we see treble valuations over
the original Japanese retail price yet again? Economics 101 may provide a preview of PS2
prices when Spring 2000 rolls around. Sony plans to ship 1 million units at launch which
may be much more than the market in Japan can bear. Supply controls price, especially when
demand may be found wanting. Flooding the market with a new Playstation when the original
Playstation should still be a powerful factor in world markets may work against
stratospheric prices. A heavy supply of PS2 consoles, with no exigent allocation problems,
should then carry a small premium over the original Japanese retail in foreign retail
markets. Assuming that there are no forex shocks next year and the dollar sits at a nice,
manipulated value of Y110, we estimate the Y39800 console at roughly US$368.
Pricing in import duty, normal profit, and transit costs, NCS would likely price the
console at US$450. Of course, nothing is perfect in an imperfect economic
pricing model since Sony may find it difficult to manufacture the core chips, yen shocks
may arise, and the U.S. may suffer a recession by the time Y2K walks in. |
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