NIS America recently launched their new European store, allowing fans in Europe to buy Limited Editions of their games directly, without having to import them from the US store. Of course, this includes the upcoming Atlus game, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth: The Wild Cards Premium Edition. However, while this should have been good news, the fans were quick to realize that the prices were a lot higher in the European store than in the US one.
Yesterday NISA opened up pre-orders for the Persona Q EU Premium Edition, but unfortunately the price for the game is also a lot a higher than its US counterpart. I’d personally have to pay $138 (game + shipping) to get the EU Premium Edition of the game, compared to the $80 + free shipping price of the US version. While we’re used to seeing higher prices for our games in the EU compared to the US, the steep 73% price increase is difficult to accept for the European Persona fans. NISA also announced (cheaper) standard shipping options for the majority of countries outside of the UK, although it’s not clear which countries actually get this option. In any case, it did little to stop the complaints. Fans are still asking NISA to lower the price of the games themselves, but at the moment it seems NISA is not planning to do so.
On NISA’s Facebook page some users have noted that there are local retailers in the EU that are now also accepting pre-orders for the Premium Edition for as low as €70. Despite these reports, NISA claims the Premium Edition is only available from the NISA EU Store. We’ll try to get more details on this, as an alternative to the NISA store would be a welcome thing indeed.