Apparently under the guise of public safety, Japan will be making it illegal to sell certain electronic devices made before April 2001:
Japan's otaku—the moniker given to its legions of nerdy pop-culture obsessives—are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore: the government is trying to outlaw some of their favorite vintage video games. On April 1, Japan's Product Safety of Electrical Appliances and Materials Law (PSE), designed to prevent electrical fires, will prohibit the resale of 259 types of electrical goods made before April 2001—including some of the most coveted video-game machines. "It's stupid," fumes retro gamer Hiroshi Yamano, while shopping at the Super Potato secondhand-game shop in Akihabara, Tokyo's nerd mecca. "Who do they think they are protecting?"
-- Retro Tech, UnpluggedIt mentions that Nintendo decks and the Playstations aren't among the outlawed, but I still can't imagine a free country where one isn't allowed to barter their Intellivision in an open market.
tagged: game, gaming
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This is also, by the way, playing hell with Japanese musicians, because it applies to synth and FX hardware.
Ouch, that's gotta seriously blow. Harder to find good equipment at good prices ... not mention hardware that's been decommissioned, I'd imagine.
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