Brazil - key facts:
- highly overpriced official products, probably the most expensive in the world
- high percentage of imported products - extensive "grey" market (prefered over official, due to cheaper prices)
- lots and lots of piracy - specially PC, Wii and Xbox360 games. It´s easy to buy copycat games on the streets. That said, those two are the most popular home consoles here today (a few years ago it was all about PS2).
- total ignorance of our federal government about the size and importance of the videogame market
- Football/soccer and FPS are the most successfull genres, but there´s a good audience for platformers, fighting and casual games
- Handheld gaming is not very popular, but in some main cities, like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the 3DS has a good audience.
- There´s no developer for console games, but a few indie developers do have successfull approaches on social and mobile gaming
Despite all these problems, Brazil still manages to rank among the 10 biggest markets. As how Brazil positions itself in those 10 is an object of discrepancy and speculation, because in Brazil the console, PC, social media and phone gaming market is counted as a single industry. Media says Brazil is the 4th market in this sense, but nobody knows for sure how Brazil would rank if only dedicated consoles were considered. i´d bet Brazil currently ranks between 8 and 10th.
