Here's my 2 Yen. Oh wait, can't use those anymore.. 2 cents, then.
I'm not using any Japanese cards this season. In fact, I recently bought a lot of English Trainers and useful cards. This change leaves me better off than I was before. However, I'm still against this new policy, simply because of how bad it'll affect the secondary market (i.e. eBay), and the effect on European players.
Let's be honest here: This has nothing to do with kids not being able to read translations. It's about store owners telling Pokemon off for letting the player base buy on the Internet instead of their stores while Pokemon uses their rooms for free.
I think this move will possibly bring the end of the game in Europe. PUI really ought to reconsider. I think the stores and competitive players can meet in the middle here, if the PUI would print boxes that would offer anywhere near the same value of a Japanese box.
An even better compromise would be to not only up the quality of the English packs, and stopping putting utterly worthless cards like Dialga Lv.X in tins and handing out stuff like Luxray at Nationals. If they gave out Uxies at States, not only would it cover the "young kid just there to have fun" base, as Uxie is CUTE AS A MOTHA, it would also help mitigate the costs of the game for the competitive players. Just what is the point of giving out a Heatran at Regionals? It's not cute for the little kids, it's nowhere near good enough for the competitive players, and it's not even good at the Gameboy games! Why not give out a scary looking Dialga G Lv.X, or even some new shiny Energies with interesting art? I saw little kids throwing away their States promos, because they were absolutely pointless. A Dragonair? Give me a break.
In case PUI thinks people would buy an English box of LA just because they need some Uxies to finish their deck, that's never going to happen, short of a lot of people winning the lottery. What WILL happen is people like Drew will up the price of Uxies to $30 a piece, and those of us with no $300/deck budget will quit the game.
Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:
Sorry if this seems like I'm having a go but as you have posted this viewpoint I thought I'd respond with a question: Does McDonalds let you bring in a burger bought at Burger King and use their facilities for free?
That comparison will only apply when hobby stores rely solely on Pokemon cards for their income.
Until then, it's a straw man argument.