Quote:
Originally Posted by Baernash
I guess they'll be first who will stop. Japanese society is riddled with consumption but they don't have space in thgeir small appartments to keep collection of all HelloProject CDs but now they can keep them in Apple's cloud! LOL
Seriously those days people don't want physical copies anymore. You can buy on japanese auctions even full discographies of various artists in silly cheap prices (often brand new sealed or in mint condition). Couple years ago I was paying for rare AYU singles even 40USD per copy and now? Few months ago I bought 16 old singles (brand new sealed) for.. 12 USD - and I see offers like that regular.
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Japan is such a consumerist market that I seriously doubt they will ever stop releasing physical copies. When they run out of room they sell their older stuff to places like Book Off or Hobby Off so they can make room for newer merchandise. From what I hear the hardcore AKB fans buy 5 or 10 or more copies of the newest single so that they can vote their favourite member in for the next round of releases, then those CDs get sold off after time to make room for the new stuff. Yes you can buy older singles for a few dollars, because many Japanese just don't keep their older CDs. I think us Ayu (other Jpop artist) fans are more collectors than consumers, so we value our collections a lot more.
On my last trip to Japan in Book Off I saw every Ayu album from ASFXX up Love Songs in the 500 yen bargain section. I didn't see any newer singles, but most of the old singles were either 100 yen or 300 yen, for both CD only and CD+DVD versions. The ayu-mix 7 and Love Songs USB sets were between 2000 and 3000 yen second hand. You'd think those last ones would be highly collectible but I saw quite a few copies in quite a few different stores. I'm not saying every Japanese person resells everything they own and doesn't collect, I'm just pointing out that a majority don't hold on to their purchases.
Feel free to discuss, I'm not trying to start a flame war. I keep all my Ayu albums but I've sold about half of my single collection because I just don't have the room and don't value the older singles as much as I do the entire album.
