Newtype USA Surprise

[Conekiller]

This month's issue of Newtype USA (Aug 2004 Gundam SEED's Athrun cover) came with a surprise. Or rather, it didn't come.

The Free DVD and Poster are no longer included with a store-bought issue of Newtype. If you wish to recieve them you must become a subscriber( the poorly redrawn centerfold is still present).
Suddenly, the magazine no longer feels as it it is worth the $9.95 I pay for it monthly.


I can understand why the desicion was made: Almost every book store I go to that sells NTUSA either has the entire selection behind the counter (next to the nuaghty 'zines) or on the shelf lacking plastic and DVDs pilferred. Both are scenarios that prevent sales. So I recommend that they lower the Shelf Price to at least $6.95 without the DVD/Poster if they don't want their sales to fall due to an overpriced mag with few "perks"

[Peter Paltridge]

Wow, I wonder if that's gonna spread to other magazines that give CDs/DVDs. I hope not. Official Playstation Magazine's demo disc is only good once in a blue moon.

[AkirQueen]

They should certainly reduce the store prices.
Ah well...I don't watch the dvds anymore. And most of the time the posters are for ridiculous anime series.

[Funkatron]

Oh, my...this is sad...


Guess it doesn't help matters that they are raising the price to 12.99 this fall(or so I've heard)

[Elven Moon]

I thought it was odd I didn't see any in bags. Ouch.

[Lord Dalek]

Damn, I'd only care if this months dvd was Eva Platinum.

[GWOtaku]

I never looked at the free DVD beyond issue 3 anyway, so its not a big deal for me.

[shogunthethird]

I only bought one issue for the article on my local anime club...and the bastards didn't include the DVD on that either...granted it was for Abenobashi and I already own the entire frelling series but that's beside the point

[Senbei Norimaki]

Luckily I stopped buying the magazine a year ago.

[JShaggy]

I think one of the reasons why Newtype USA no longer includes DVDs or posters in their newsstand version is probably because of theft issues. When I wanted to buy some video game mags that had a dvd included, there were usually a few issues that were literally ripped open with the DVDs missing from them.

Apparently in some places you have petty thieves who tend to rip apart any kind of magazine that comes with a demo disc or DVD and steal away the contents, devaluing the magazine just because they don't want to pay for it. It's probably one reason why several other magazines have followed suit in discontinuing DVDs and posters in their newsstand issues.

[Artimus Gigan]

Crap


Looks like I'm subscribing then...

[Umino]

Well, since I'm a subscriber this don'st bother me.

[PaQ]

wow.. The only way I could rationalize paying $10 for that magazine was the poster and DVD.. unless they rapidly drop their store price, I'm not buying it anymore.

I'd been thinking about subscribing anyway, now it looks like I have an incentive too, and I'll be looking more into it now.

[Karl Olson]

you know, this sucks for people only picked up certain issues (me) and always at stores that never had disc/poster theft issues (me.) I guess I'll either have to subscribe, or I'll be dropping newtype off my occaisional pick up list.

[Keiichi]

IMHO it was'nt really worth $9.95 to begin with even with the DVD. Now with that gone it really its'nt worth that.

[Zebi]

This is certainly disappointing. I am not a regular reader of Newtype USA, but I would pick up the occasional issue if I was interested in the series featured on the DVD. Usually, I'd end up passing the disc on to a friend so they could check out the featured episode. There is no way that I will be subscribing to the magazine; I can't afford to because of the US/Canadian exchange rate.

[Andy Mancini]

I know that I'm in the minority, but frankly, I don't care. What did we get last month on the DVD? Gravitation (a niche title if I ever saw one) and Dai-Guard, which is almost two years old? I'm sorry, but the DVD will not be missed. Do I hope that they lower the price a ways? Of course I do. But will I stop buying the magazine? No, mainly because I buy Newtype for its content, not the free stuff. I realize that many of you are going to make judgements on me saying that, but I don't care. They do a good job for the most part, and until I see otherwise, I will still pick it up when I have $10 to spare.

[Artimus Gigan]

I buy it for the pin-ups, how can I finish boardering my room with them now?

My grand design to have them act as wall boarders fully wrapping around all 4 walls...

[Fatneck]

I think another factor that raises Newtype's price is the quality and the size of the paper they use. An average of 200 pages in full color on 9X11.5 glossy paper isn't cheap. To me it's the best anime magazine out there, with good coverage on upcoming titles with great pinups, production art, etc. The dvd is a nice bonus, but I could do without it.

[lostrune]

The Free DVD and Poster are no longer included with a store-bought issue of Newtype. If you wish to recieve them you must become a subscriber( the poorly redrawn centerfold is still present).
Suddenly, the magazine no longer feels as it it is worth the $9.95 I pay for it monthly.

So I recommend that they lower the Shelf Price to at least $6.95 without the DVD/Poster if they don't want their sales to fall due to an overpriced mag with few "perks"

Here's from the unofficial insider grapevines:

The first reason they won't be lowering the price is that the free DVD insert are supposed to be that - free. If they lower the price now, then they would be admitting that it wasn't free in the first place, and thus the previous buyers were duped. (Some of those buyers didn't want the free DVD insert, but they still paid $10 each full price.)

The second reason is that it seems they may instead raise the price to $13-15. It seems, that was actually supposed to be the original price, but due to higher than expected pre-orders, they lowered the starting price to $10 (the greater demand offsets the lower price). But now, they want to recoup their investments.

Again, these are unofficial, so grain of salt.