Nintendo is on you side! If you live in Japan.

The Japanese are a funny old bunch, they're fond of strange cartoons involving children shouting and running around in a flurry of hyperactivity, music videos involving giant blue floating fish and the quintessential "Will Do Anything For Money" Japanese gameshow, in which people are encouraged to give up their dignity in crazy challenges.

Japan imposes a 5% sales tax on items sold at retail, which formerly was added on at the point of sale.. Prices on display are now set to include this 5% sales tax -which comes into effect from the 22nd of March.

However, Nintendo, in a reaction to this new policy, have announced that they are cutting the retail price of games and hardware by an identical 5% in order that the consumer doesn't have to bear the brunt of this legislation. Effectively, this could be seen as a 5% price drop from Nintendo, but the truth is that prices wil remain the same and the tax will be pre-paid on the hardware and software.