A lot of the time this is actually the case. Strong advertisements aren't very common here, at least not as common as they are in the Americas. It isn't non-existent, i remember a while back in Italy they pushed Muramasa, and down here in the UK i remember seeing large billboards advertising Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. TV ads are pretty scarce for 3rd party "hardcore" titles though, i don't know if games like Madworld or Tatsunoko vs Capcom had any but i don't remember seeing them, in fact i've seen absolutely nothing regarding the latter. I do quite vividly remember seeing commercials for the Demo of Bayonetta when it was released here though.

In many cases it's actually so bad it's terrifying. Half of the time it's like some games don't even exist and i am not over exaggerating. I never saw games such as TvC or Little King's Story on the front shelves when they were released, but rather hidden away behind all the garbage, and some games i just don't even see altogether. Rune Factory Frontier was recently released over here and i actually had a rather tough time hunting it down, the store i did find which had some copies only had a small amount. I still for the life of me cannot find any copies of Tales of Symphonia 2 which i've been looking out for since it was released and it is becoming more and more apparent that i must search online for these games.

Piracy is everywhere and it is a problem that i wish could be dealt with much easier. Most people down here i come across are selfish individuals who do nothing more than pirate. I do my best to make them understand what they're doing but they just don't want to hear it.

Based on the points that are keep popping up(mostly of what IxNa said) makes me wonder if the store-owners themselves are actually anti-Nintendo or Sony and Microsoft made some sort of a deal.
My apologies if this post sounded like a fanboy, but that's the vibe I'm getting from these info... :s