To DVD or not to DVD, about Newtype USA and a rant!

[Roy Mustang]

Really haven't kept up with the news on Newtype USA, but I have been reading about the new change in the distribution policy that they made just last month.

The news stand copies of Newtype USA mag no longer include a free sampler dvd, but the price will still be $9.95 for it and only cumsumers that have a subscription to the magazine purchased directly from the publisher will receive the monthly bonus DVD.

Now for

I think this is a bad business move on their part. Not for taking the dvd out, but for not dropping the price down a bit. I feel this will cause a drop in people getting Newtype USA now. They should put something else in for the news stand ones, since the price will still be the same and there are other ways to get people to buy.

Now I can understand if they had to do this because of production costs for theproduct have gone up and wanted to give the dvd's to the people that buy a subscription.

But here is a problem with the subscription. It cost $90 for a full year's subscription and I know that is $30 off from buying all of them at the news stand. But most age range for Newtype readers are from 15 to 20 years old. They don't have that kind of money burn at one time. I can undertand about droping the dvd in the news stand, but keeping it at full price is not good.

Note: this part is not bashing any anime.

The reason why I never went and brought a subscription is because of the cover stories that they didn't do. I understand they want talk about new anime, but they are starting to run some animes into the ground by putting them as the cover story.

I wish the cover more then just the new animes that are out there. Its like a pattern.

November 2002 Newtype- analyzes Mobile Suit Gundam SEED-characters, details of opposing armies, political alliances, mecha specs and insight from the director and producer. November`s FEATURE ARTICLES included coverage of HEATGUY J , Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Azumanga Daioh, an interview with Voices of a Distant Star creator Makoto Shinkai and much more.

Me- Okay, cool. Frist vol of the mag and it looks good.

December 2002 Newtype
.hack: a comprehensive look at the world of .hack, including discussion of the game, the OVA, the soundtracks and more. Other articles cover Puchi Puri Yucie and an interview with Peter Fernandez, the voice of Speed Racer.

(Good issue)



January 2003 Newtype

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: series director Mitsuo Fukuda talks about the creation of the first Gundam for the 21st century. (okay, that good but lets move on to something more then just Seed now)
Other articles about Wolf’s Rain, Macross Zero, Onegai Teacher, Arjuna and much more. (Nice, but it would be nice to talk about older anime too)

February 2003 Newtype

Cover story about Bones Inc., the studio responsible for Cowboy Bebop: Knockin` on Heaven`s Door (aka Cowboy Bebop: The Movie) and RahXephon.

(Good issue and it didn't have anything that was repeated from other issues)

April 2003 Newtype

Analyzes Mobile Suit Gundam SEED-characters, details of opposing armies, political alliances, mecha specs and insight from the director and producer. (Oh goody, another cover about Gundam Seed)
Exclusive updated information on the renewal of Evangelion. Hear what the original Eva staff has to say about this groundbreaking project. (Nothing really new with that. Heard about about this off the net anyway.)

Feature on the top 100 anime heroines of the year. (A nice change for once and read on what they pick as their 100 heroines, I would like to see more of these in Newtype)

May 2003 Newtype
The Animatrix. Peter Chung and Andy Jones give you the inside scoop on this highly anticipated animation project. (Not bad, not a big fan of animartrix, but it was something new to read and look at) More coverage of Gundam Seed, Kiddy Grade. ( again!)


June 2003 Newtype
Cover story about Kiddy Grade. ( They sure love that Kiddy Grade in Houston.)

A talk with Studio 4?C, where President Eiko Tanaka and director Koji Morimoto discuss the studio`s history, new projects and their involvement on The Animatrix. (Nice, but we have cover animatrix already)

August 2003 Newtype
Cover story about Madhouse studio. (Like this one, they need to do more cover stories about anime studios.

September 2003 Newtype
Another cover story on Gundam Seed. ( )

October 2003 and November 2003 Newtype
Cover story for October was about WHR. (A good one, since it didn't talk about Gundam Seed or Kiddy Grade)

Novermber cover story was about Studio CLAMP. (Another good one and something that hasn't been talk about in Newtype yet.)

December 2003
Cover half part cover story is about analyzes Mobile Suit Gundam SEED-characters, details of opposing armies, political alliances, mecha specs and insight from the director and producer. (:bang: Is this Gundan Seed newtype or Newtype USA. There is more gundam anime then just Gundam Seed)

A 2003 Holiday Buyer’s Guide. (This is the only part that I like about this issue for that month.)

I have look at some of the 2004 issues and pick a few up and just about everyone of them has had something about, well you guess it, Gundam Seed again. I know that Japan's Newtype is a bit bias on Gundam, but I like to see more about older and new animes that are out there too.


So what is your feeling about this if you do buy Newtype USA.

[termyt]

I think you hit on why they are doing it there. Since their readership is young, they may not have a lot of subscriptions, but magazines really like subscriptions because it helps them plan out their print runs and makes them more efficient. So, like it or not, they want to encourage people to buy subscriptions.

Was it a good idea? I don't know. I read a pole that said 45% of those who buy it at the newstand are threatening to quit, which doesn't sound good for Newtype.

[Yojimbo]

PC Gamer did the same thing with their discs. I hate it when companies do stuff like this...

[shooraijin]

I was wondering why the newsstand Newtype I was looking at had no DVD. Well, nuts to them. I only bought it from the newsstand, so that I could see if I was interested in the pack-in DVD or not. They've pretty much lost *my* business.

[agasfas]

Yeah, i've noticed that too. I've purchused a few Newtype USA in the past and i wanted to get another. But when i went to the store i also noticed they weren't doing the free sampler anymore.

I think this is a bad business move on their part. Not for taking the dvd out, but for not dropping the price down a bit.

I agree, the sampler dvd's i would think would help business for both Newtype USA and the dvd company itself. It gave people a real look into a series w/o having to purchase the first dvd in a 10dvd series.
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[Rev. Doc]

Now I can understand if they had to do this because of production costs for theproduct have gone up and wanted to give the dvd's to the people that buy a subscription.

But here is a problem with the subscription. It cost $90 for a full year's subscription and I know that is $30 off from buying all of them at the news stand. But most age range for Newtype readers are from 15 to 20 years old. They don't have that kind of money burn at one time. I can undertand about droping the dvd in the news stand, but keeping it at full price is not good.

I guess a lot of people missed the announcement they made and then pulled quickly.

Newtype announced about 2 months ago that their newstand price was going up to $15.00 an issue. This must have really hit the fan with many people on the internet because within less than a day that announcement was pulled. Evidently, they had to put their heads together and decide what they could do to keep the price down to it's current level. Obviously, pulling the DVD extra was the decision. No doubt it is being left with the subscription issue in an effort to boost this area.

Personally, I have only purchased one issue since it started (I wanted to see what the Azumanga dub sounded like). My wife thinks I'm crazy enough watching anime I can imagine what she would think if I read about it all the time. I am not sure if all the DVDs samples they put out are like this, but it seemed like ADV was the primary user of this feature. While I purchase a lot of ADV titles, I also do a great deal of business with other distributors. Again, I only had the one DVD sample to go by so this may not be the case.

Newtype began as an effort to put in the hands of anime fans a product that iis comparable to the Newtype produced in Japan. From it's beginning it was recognized that this was going to be an expensive venture as mostly die hard anime fans would really want this with hopes that base would grow over time. However, with decisions like this having to be made it may not be growing quite as fast as they had hoped it would. Discontinuing business with them will only kill this magazine. You may want to stick with it a little longer to see if it picks up. I may even buy a copy or two to lend my support. Certainly not the subscription because again, the DVD is not that important to me.

[shooraijin]

The thing is, for me at least, most of the DVD pack-ins aren't of much interest to me either to warrant buying a subscription (hence me waiting until I found a DVD pack-in I liked), but the print portion magazine -never- had much for me unless it's a feature article on a series I already liked (for example, I did buy the one with the Furuba postcards ^^). If Newtype polled their audience better, I think they'd find that most USA readers are most interested in the *video* and that most of them are buying it from the newsstand to see if the money is worth it for a series they have passing interest in.

On the other hand, ADV is starting to release their Animini samplers, so I think I'll go that route for their series at least. I bought the SuperGALS! one to try it out and liked it.

[Roy Mustang]

I am not sure if all the DVDs samples they put out are like this, but it seemed like ADV was the primary user of this feature. While I purchase a lot of ADV titles, I also do a great deal of business with other distributors. Again, I only had the one DVD sample to go by so this may not be the case.

They mostly are. Since ADV is the putting out Newtype and all. Another thing is, if you would have look and saw on your sample dvd of Azumanga it was both sub and dub. That is something that started not to long ago as putting both the sub and dub in on the disk.

Newtype began as an effort to put in the hands of anime fans a product that iis comparable to the Newtype produced in Japan. From it's beginning it was recognized that this was going to be an expensive venture as mostly die hard anime fans would really want this with hopes that base would grow over time. However, with decisions like this having to be made it may not be growing quite as fast as they had hoped it would. Discontinuing business with them will only kill this magazine. You may want to stick with it a little longer to see if it picks up. I may even buy a copy or two to lend my support. Certainly not the subscription because again, the DVD is not that important to me.

That is true. The only thing that feel is by taking dvd out, if they could lower the price a bit. I know that some buy it for just the mag, but one thing that I like was getting the dvd in a issue that ended up being a bad issue.

[Rogie]

Well, if you think about it, the whole "Newtype" name came from the original Gundam (is that why they chose the title?), so of course, they're partial to Gundam. That doesn't excuse them, however. I don't like Newtype much myself anyway, since there's not enough story and too much picture. I know, it's the "Moving Pictures Magazine" or something, but still...

[awsam007]

They mostly are. Since ADV is the putting out Newtype and all.

I subscribe to both Animerica and Anime Insider. I don't buy NewType because of the price and the fact that it's owned by ADV, which will skew their reviews. Along the the same lines, Animerica is out out by Viz LLC and it shows. I'm actually going to let me sub run out and not review Animerica because I've found the opinions are so biased. Also, Animerica recently made fun of Superbook (listing it among the worst anime on TV ever), which, while not suprising considering the secular publishing company, still left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I think Insider is owned by Wizard, which to my knowledge doesn't put out any DVD's or manga.

[shooraijin]

Thanks for the tip, awsam. Maybe I'll look into Anime Insider. While I like Viz, I'm not too interested in reading a Viz-slanted publication, so that rules Animerica out for me (their opinion of Superbook being a separate concern).

[Roy Mustang]

I think Insider is owned by Wizard, which to my knowledge doesn't put out any DVD's or manga.

It is and one thing good about Anime insider is its only $4.99.

http://store.yahoo.com/wizarduniverse/aninbacis.html