What’s up with game companies ignoring South America?
- February 15th, 2008
- Read 295 times
- 2 Comments
Why do video game companies ignore South America?
Next Generation asks just such a question today, wondering out loud why the hardware companies (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) ignore the continent; with no hardware, how can there be software? Ten points are explored as to why this happens, and why it’s a silly policy. Piracy is cited, both in the article and in the comments, though the high price legitimate software may help explain this. (There are game consoles in South America, of course, but they have to be imported as they’re not locally produced.)
South America’s broadband penetration is on the rise, English is spoken to a large degree, making translation optional (thus cutting costs) and there’s a gaming press there—getting the word out about upcoming games/consoles is all the more easy.
Yeah, it’s more of a “it’s Friday, what kind of Digg-baity list can we come up with” more than anything else, but I imagine it’ll kill a few wend-of-the-workday minutes.
South America: The Lost Continent [Next Generation]
Federico Almada (Who am I?)
4 months ago
Am from Argentina… and I have recently bought a PSP which… as you may imagine… is hard to feed with new games… well.. ‘with games’.
A new PSP from Sony Style here costs from 1200 upto 2000 “pesos” (yes, it depends if you get it from Buenos Aires, or anywhere outside there), while the games cost from 150 to 300 “pesos”. So… buying a PSP at the lower price, is the same as getting 4 -new- (6 months old) games (1200 = 300×4).
One of the main things are the taxes… if you get something from outside at 100 dollars, you have to pay at least 100 dollars for getting in here… so, just there you have 200% of the original price. Then, the seller wants to make some money, so… add 50 to 100% from that, and you get that a game of 30 dollars, cost around 90 to 120 dollars… nice, isn’t it?
Anyways… just to add as a final detail… our average salary is around 800 to 1000 pesos… so… it is not (and will not be) easy to be a PSP (or PS3, XBox 360, DS, Wii) player in Argentina… at least you have a loooot of money :) (unluckily, i dont :P)
humberto (Who am I?)
4 months ago
i agreed with federico am from venezuela and It’s the same thing here it’s too damn expensive to buy a gaming console or a gaming computer