| Fight-the-Streets said: Honestly, who cares about Brazil? Only a "few million" people live there (pun intended). As long as Nintendo doesn't have an official subsidiary there who officially publishes Nintendo products and you have no proper tax treaty in place between Brazil and Japan, it's what you get. Surely, Nintendo will not sell their products at a loss just that the "poor" Brazilians can afford their products. As long as Brazil is not stepping up their game, the situation for console gaming will never be better (outside of bootleg and black market products). |
I understand about avoiding taking losses on products that have actual material value, like hardware. You'll notice no one in this thread is complaining about hardware prices, because those are understandable: you can't lower them just because we're poor.
But the "loss" argument for software is bogus. With few exceptions, Nintendo games are relatively cheap to make compared to other publishers. They could be sold for less and still generate massive profits, given how much they sell. If localized prices were not viable, we wouldn't have localized pricing for other international services like Netflix, Spotify, or even game subscription services like Game Pass. Steam sells software at lower prices in emerging markets for a reason: cheaper prices are still better than piracy. It's more profitable for publishers to earn something in LATAM and Southern Asia than nothing at all. Guess what? Valve is bigger than Nintendo in both revenue and profits
What is Nintendo really losing by selling more units at lower prices only in markets that can't afford full-price games? The answer is: nothing.
Nintendo doesn't do this because they see themselves as Ferraris, not Fords. They prefer to maintain higher prices to reinforce the perception that their games are "premium." The worst part is that Americans, Japanese (and to a lesser extent, Europeans) go along with this narrative—that Nintendo games are Ferraris—even when they aren''t. So, anyone in an emerging economy is left with no choice but to pay up, or in any case, simply playing in other platforms instead
