Amazon.de is still based in a different country just like Sony and MS's European operations are based out of the UK.

Lusche may be correct but I'm still thinking there is more to this than simply NoE being asshats.  EA Origin had this exact same time schedule last year.  Now that's too coincidental.  That means something exists that is regulating some kind of sale to certain hours.  How they go around it is the real question we need to be asking.

Lusche, I doubt they are so misninformed that they are taking an active policy based on an inactive regulation.   They are based in Germany and have German lawyers on the payrole.  I've never once heard of a business enacting a policy that hurts their sales based on a law that no longer applies.  And if that were the case, it could fixed in 5 minutes by removing the code that applies the time restrictions.

while amazon sony and ms are not located in germany they still have to follow german laws if they want to sell their products in germany. the same laws that are applied to the companies based in germany trying to sell their products in germany.

the only reason i can see is because of usk18 trailers in their shop which could fall under the tv station law and that they cant seperate it with the games in the store, because trailers you can get for free and anyone can access it and this might be a problem, because for games you have pay for it before they can play it. (7year can click trailer with no problem, but cant play the usk18 games because he/she cant buy it without cc stolen from parents)
But i think its unclear in the law for those trailers on 'new media' which we german call consoles, pc, internet, handy ..., because its unclear if those laws applies to the new media ...

they are just playing it safely, while other companies are pushing it or bending the law.

The company (Amazon GmbH) is located in Germany, they pay taxes to Germany, they ship from Germany and majority of their customers are in Germany.

That's only a subsidiary. Basically everything you get from Amazon.de comes from Luxembourg.

"Website

Amazon.de ist der Handelsname für Amazon EU S.a.r.l., Amazon Services Europe S.a.r.l. und die Amazon Media EU S.a.r.l..

Diese Website (ausgenommen Marketplace) wird von der Amazon EU S.a.r.l., 5, Rue Plaetis - 2338 Luxemburg (Ust-ID: DE 814584193, beim R.C.S. Luxemburg eingetragene Registernummer: B0101818 ) betrieben. Die Amazon.de Marketplace- und zShops-Plattform ebenso wie andere Angebote für Drittanbieter auf dieser Website werden von der Amazon Services Europe S.a.r.l, 5, Rue Plaetis, L-2338 Luxemburg (Ust.ID: LU 19647148,  beim R.C.S. Luxemburg eingetragene Registernummer: B0093815 ) betrieben. Der MP3 Music Service wird von der Amazon Media EU S.a.r.l., 5, Rue Plaetis, L-2338 Luxemburg (Ust.ID: LU 20944528, beim R.C.S. Luxemburg eingetragene Registernummer:  B0112767)  betrieben. Alle vorgenannten Gesellschaften werden gesetzlich vertreten durch Xavier Garambois."

http://www.amazon.de/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=505050



However I already mentioned another German store that sells 18+ content and is located in Germany: http://www.buch.de/shop/hilfe-impressum/show/

That's not logic. Juridically speaking, the BO2 map pack is a usk18-rated video game "product" just like the full BO2 game. They should not be treated differently by the online retailer. Either there's a loophole in the law, or someone is not abiding the law.

if someone broke the law they already would be sued ...

I think its just a sony internal policy to not sell usk18 games in their store in germany but its fine to sell the dlc ...

OK, it seems that Nintendo had 2 options. Restrict the time or use a technical means to prove age.

I've seen suggestions such as Post Ident and Schufa but I think those are German only which does nothing for everyoen else in Europe. A couple of others are suggested by the German KJM (Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media). That regulation (or one very similar to it) definitely applies to online media now.
http://www.kjm-online.de/de/pub/service/english.cfm


I think with all the information we've come across (some companies are not impacted, others were at least at one point) that the best we can really say is that we don't really know anything at this point.

post ident can only be used with physical copies and is used to get age verification of usk18 games for online shops like amazon or others so that they are allowed to send you a physical copy (post ident is a service from dhl a local postal service) not possible for digital copies.
Schufa is the first time I heard it that you can use that for age verification. Usually used for credit info verification if you are able to pay for what you are trying to buy.

Dont know to much about KJM so cant really comment. But I havent found anything on their homepage that limits selling digital copies on the internet.

But yeah I agree we dont really know anything at this point ...

Basing on my very basic jusiprudence knowledge a possible explaination could be that th current German law became effective after the Wiiware service was introduced and it's not retroactive.

In other words it may be only appliable to products and services released after the law introduction.

Post-Ident can be used to verify an entry made online and AFTER that you could buy online without further identification. I think there was a discussion about Post-ident used for DE-Mail: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/De-Mail-verklagt-E-Post-1151657.html

Schufa for age-verification was also new for me, but it seems Verify-U uses this: https://www.verify-u.de/?/helpFaq

KJM: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommission_für_Jugendmedienschutz

KJM doesn't itself impose any limits, but they can start the process for banning at the BPjM. BPjM cannot ban anything, if nobody makes an request to do so.

And I think Nintendo does far more than is needed by laws. Maybe they want to play it safe or maybe they want a clean image in the eyes of parents.