Quote:
Originally Posted by DaleDe
It is not quite that bad. Europe devices typically have a longer no hassle warranty which causes them to cost more. USA products are priced without taxes while European products include the VAT tax. There are still higher but not as much as you have indicated.
Dale
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VAT accounts for 17.5%, at least in the UK, and I've never bought the extra warranty time argument. Most warranties don't cover accidental damage, that leaves manufacturing defects or hardware failure due to normal use as a reason for warranty returns.
A manufacturing defect in a piece of consumer electronics it's almost certainly going to come to light fairly quickly so it would be covered under practically any warranty, and if the hardware fails from normal use in under a couple of years then the company shouldn't be selling the device, period.
I'm sure providing extra warranty time does cost some money but there's no way it can be used to justify the huge price hikes we are talking about.
Take the PS3. The basic model is about £200 in the US and about £300 in the UK. £35 of the difference is VAT, that leaves £65 to cover the extra warranty time. Say 1 in 1000 PS3s fail within the extended warranty period, that is they fail during the time when it would be out of warranty in the US but is still in warranty in the UK. That would give Sony £65000 to cover each instance of failure. They could send out gold plated, ruby encrusted PS3s as replacements and still have tens of thousands of pounds left over.
You can do the same sums for any piece of consumer electronics equipment in the UK and come to the same conclusion, we get ripped off big time. Same thing with so-called 'localisation' costs, a process that costs pennies per unit being used to justify vast increases.
The reason things cost so much more over here is simply down to the greed of the companies and the stupidity of the public willing to pay the ludicrous prices they charge.