Consumer-electronics companies have learned that arbitrage cuts into their ability to price-discriminate. From Electronics With Borders: Some Work Only in the U.S.:
Some consumer-electronics companies are designing products so they will work only in the U.S. For example, some of the latest printers from Hewlett-Packard Co. refuse to print if they aren’t fed ink cartridges bought in the same region of the world as the printer. Nintendo Co.’s latest hand-held game machines are sold in the U.S. with power adaptors that don’t work in Europe.Such measures prevent thrifty foreign consumers and gray marketers — traders who sell goods through channels that haven’t been authorized by the manufacturer — from taking advantage of the decline of the dollar against the world’s major currencies to buy lower-price products in the U.S.