While us Aussie dont get the game until June 21st, North Americans have been enjoying the latest edition of Pokmon – Diamond and Pearl – for just under a week. Thanks to the 5 million owners of the games in Japan who have had the game for over 6 months now, its become a sellers market on the GTS (Global Trading System). Those friendly Japanese folk are trading rare and legendary Pokmon, such as the starters, for crap Pokmon. Stick up a level 5 Magikarp (crappiest most-common Pokmon) and get a Palkia (legendary) for free.

So why are the Japanese games giving away good Pokmon? Find out inside. A post from the Quarter to Three forums says that its the Japanese fascination with English text that is driving this market:

Japanese players can’t enter English characters for their Pokemon names. (And American players can’t enter Japanese text.) English words are “”cool”” for some reason in Japan and since they need American players to trade their Pokemon to get ones with English names, they will make excellent deals (for Americans) to get English-named Pokemon. I believe the game has also sold around 6 million copies in Japan and probably about a million in the US so far, so, theoretically, the demand far outstrips the supply at this point, making sellers market.

This is great for North Americans now (and importers like myself) but by the time the game is released here in Australia the mark will have diminished and the likelihood of these sorts of trades will be slim. So if you got some rare Pokmon you want then now is the time to sell off your splashing Magikarp.

Source: Quarter To Three