| radishhead said: People who live in more expensive countries - do you get paid more in your respective currency, or do you just do without buying many games? I can't imagine walking into a shop and seeing a Wii on sale for over twice what I would expect to pay for one normally :S |
Actually we usually earn less money, the average income in my country is 120 dollars a month. So the gaming hobby is either ruled by piracy or only for "wealthy" people, where wealthy means people who earns around 1500+ dollars in a month.
The reason why the games are expensive in our countries is because we don't have direct sale channels, so everything we buy in the stores has passed for at least 1 or 2 intermediaries. I'll give an example with the Wii: The first intermediary buys the console in USA without paying taxes and brings it to Panama that its a free port (no taxes also), but they have to earn something, that usually puts the console from its initial 200, in around 240-250. Then other intermediary brings the console to my country, when it enters it has to pay 10% tax because its a foreign product, but that intermediary also takes around 10-15% of profit, that puts the price around 290 dollars. Finally the stores sells it to the final user has to charge internal taxes 16% and earn some profit, that puts the final price in 350 dollars.
For xbox 360, they have better distribution channels, as they don't have as many intermediaries and you can find the console cheaper taking into account the initial price.
What I do, its to bring my games directly through a PO Box in Miami, so I only have to pay taxes and shipping cost, so I usually can get my games for only 30% of the original cost. And sometimes a friend of mine bring them to me, so I get them even cheaper.
