Otaku with a fondness for waiting in the summer will likely be bewitched by this Ano Natsu laptop PC – unfortunately for those individuals however, this laptop comes at a price which isn’t as friendly as summer skies.
The scheme here is no different than with the “Another” laptop – as well as the several eroge themed few before it.
Essentially, the deal is that one can receive a netbook with an image plastered on the back, some desktop wallpapers pre-included, and several sound packs, for the price of a high-end laptop. Basically, what one could achieve for around $36 USD, the money going to printing an adhesive artwork for your laptop’s lid, and the digital goodies being free, is being applied to the cheapest of personal computers, and the profit margin is being multiplied tenfold – if not eleven. This is almost like an organized crime syndicate rather than a business.
However, it gets worse – there’s two more tiers of option available, both of which are actual laptops, and both exceeding a thousand USD. A mid-range, Core i3 laptop with the super spectacular Ano Natsu upgrade applied is being pushed at the ridiculous price of approximately $1754 – whereas a more robust model which one could amazingly score for a mere $1000 or so is peddled for 164,800 yen, or nearly $2070 USD.
According to this petty illogical pricing, an adhesive sticker and some desktop backgrounds are worth $1000 USD.
Yet don’t think no one is crazy enough to buy these – in fact, they’re all already sold out. All of them. Otaku can occasionally be quite shameful creatures it seems.
May 10, 2012 @ 6:24 CDT
Haha, easy to profit from hardcore otakus.
May 10, 2012 @ 6:58 CDT
Be a pirate and save >2000 USD by:
-setting up Ano Natsu desktop background
-sticking Ano Natsu-themed wallpaper-sticker-thingy
Doing it pirate style. Save your money for BD, guys.
May 10, 2012 @ 7:06 CDT
There’s also a pirate way of getting BD, download an anime and burn it into a BD disc, it’s not like the quality is worse and you’re buying BD release not for cover. But buying real BD means supporting the studio.
May 10, 2012 @ 8:41 CDT
Well, buying this abomination also support the studio.
But the difference comes between “reasonable price” and “oh-so-epic money managing”.
May 10, 2012 @ 12:30 CDT
It also supports organized crime.
May 10, 2012 @ 8:53 CDT
Not so overpriced IMO, the 164,800 yen version has specs similar to most alienware and fit with a blu-ray player. I’d put a 9cell battery in it to make use of the blu-ray player on the go.
GPU is useful for any 3D doujin
They should like bundle the anime with this.
May 10, 2012 @ 9:08 CDT
By the time I saved enough money for this, I would’ve got a PS3, a 360, and a Vita.
Besides, otaku should have their own PC/laptop/thingamajigs. Except if they’re watching animes from cable TV.
May 10, 2012 @ 12:29 CDT
By the time I saved up for this, I wouldn’t want to waste the money on a laptop with some fancy illustration on the back cover.
May 10, 2012 @ 12:23 CDT
Alienware is overpriced in case you didn’t know.
You can get an ASUS with top of the line “Alienware specs” for $1000.
May 11, 2012 @ 6:53 CDT
I actually don’t see this as overpriced… 120GB SSD, 8gb of Memory, GeForce GT 650M 1GB, BluRay Drive. The price is relatively high but it’s not overpriced. It’s specs is also much better than the 13-inch macbook pro. The disappointing part is the processor though
May 11, 2012 @ 13:01 CDT
Larger screen, 4GB more memory, GeForce GTX 560M 2GB:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230142
$1300
May 11, 2012 @ 14:48 CDT
Oh excuse me, it’s actually 3GB dedicated video memory.
May 11, 2012 @ 14:53 CDT
Found a better example, for $100 more than the same price of the AnoNatsu craptop, you can get 16GB DDR3, 750GB HDD & 250GB SSD (total of 1TB), 17″ screen, and GeForce GTX 670M.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230409
That’s not even double the specs, that’s triple, or quad, if not more.