I was about to get lunch with my friend Art Vandelay who’s both an importer and an exporter and given the state of the world with tariffs, retaliatory tariffs, and more I thought it would be good to have a thread to discuss importing games, blu-rays, & other media in 2025…
After a generation of region-free consoles letting us all finally play Densha de Go! on western hardware, it looks like Region-locking is coming back on the Nintendo Switch 2 in at least one form. Still, holding out hope that most games will be cross-compatible (after all, Suika Game was a Japanese eshop game that went viral in the USA) but nationalism is a hell of a thing.
Are you an importer? Are you an exporter? Are you an Importer/Exporter? Will these tariffs change your buying habits for retro and modern games alike?
Personally, I decided to pull the trigger on perhaps my last order in a while from Play-Asia, getting a copy of Hakuoki, Lunar Remastered, and SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered on Switch. I haven’t seen any indication they’ll have western releases, and the prices haven’t been hit with tariffs yet, so we’ll see if these pre-orders stick!
de minimis provision ending on May 2 so get your treats in now! After May 2, you gotta try your luck on if you gonna get dinged by custom. I doubt there’s gonna be enough people to check packages tho.
I’m so glad that I built a computer, got a new phone, and giant kiln all in the last couple years. I need to stock up on art supplies who’s metal based pigment, the most expensive part of the medium before those get out of control.
I buy a fair amount of stuff straight from Japan. Gunpla, figures, art books, mostly hobby stuff. I have some pre-orders at places that ship from Japan that I think I’m just gonna have to eat the cost on.
I don’t know what I’m gonna do honestly. There are plenty of specialty US-based small businesses that get this stuff but it’s always a couple months later and already more expensive, and it will be even more so if the tariffs don’t change. Maybe it’s still cheaper with tariffs to buy directly from Japan if the exchange rate stays favorable but then I feel like I should support the US businesses selling this stuff because I can’t imagine they made much money before and now it’ll be even harder for them.
I’m not a big importer by forum standards. Maybe once every year or two I order something through PlayAsia or another venue. For instance, I picked up the Japanese Mega Drive 2.
I’ll probably take a long, hard look on if I want anything ahead of the de minimus exemption phaseout deadline. After that, it’s probably no direct imports for a long time.
I technically started importing in 2003. Before that, in 1998, my father sent me imported Pokémon goods from LA that left a huge impression on me.
Can it also be a thread where the elders describe what it was like importing in the early years? Like in the 90’s or 80’s? I’ve heard whispers of som really cool stuff from back in the day. I was on the east coast in a small town in 1998, where culturally it was still thought Nintendo was Chinese.
Nowadays, I still don’t buy new, but I’m regularly importing boxes of stuff from Japan.
Most exciting thing I imported from Japanese retail when it was new? I got a mother 3 deluxe box in 2006!
My studio is in disarray, so I cannot readily snap a few photos, but I import media all throughout the year. From French comics to Japanese novels. Right now I am looking at importing anthropology books from Japan about the Jomon figures.
