Living in Britain has its advantages, but some of the drawbacks include: Later release dates on products such as the PS3 and of course how it is viewed as perfectly acceptable to be ripped-off by multinational companies. iTunes for example: Currently, itunes songs cost 79p in the UK and 99c in the USA. By todays exchange rate, $0.99 will give you £0.50, so why are The British charged the best part of 80p?!
It has also emerged that when the PS3 is (finally) released in the UK, The Brits will again be ripped off. This time over game prices.
Sony announced that it will charge UK players £39 per game when the console launches on the 23rd March, despite identical games in the US costing almost £10 less. This news comes just weeks after Sony got grilled over its PS3 console prices: In the UK, the console will sell for £425 whilst in the US, they can be bought for £306 (at the current rates). An overall saving of £119 if you are fortunate enough to be American.
The latest atrocity comes under the heading of: Windows Vista!
Currently Windows Vista prices in the UK can be as much as 65% higher than in the U.S. Thousands of British tech enthusiasts have, as a result of this huge pricing difference signed a petition that aims to get Microsoft to lower the price to its UK customers.
More than 4,600 Brits have signed the petition so far which in part reads: “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to bring pressure on Microsoft to stop them overcharging the U.K. for its Vista Operating System.”
The petition appears on a site hosted by the office of U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair.
On the site, the creator of the petition, a Paul Milne states that there is no reason for there to be such a huge difference in prices between the UK and the US other than Microsofts belief that the U.K. customers will pay more than their U.S. counterparts.
A price check Tuesday on the U.S. version of Amazon.com showed that the upgrade version of Windows Vista is selling for $153.99. The same version is selling on Amazon’s U.K. site for 129.48 GBP, or $254.53 in U.S. currency.
You can add your name to the petition by clicking the link below:
Please Note that the deadline for submissal is 20th April 2007 and that you must be a UK resident to take part.
