Here's the actual quote:

Still have to pay import tax.

Oh, ok, the feed I'm looking at is pretty low quality, I can only make out the boxes being dropped in, not the PS3 on it.

Well, if they're going to start distribing there they might aswell include the PS3 too, it would be nice if they gave some more info on price, date, countries etc.

well here in panama everything cost 100-200 and we use american dollars.

we don't get a sony warranty and the consoles they sell are due retailers and they provide their own warranty.

That was a great part of the presentation..... Little Big Planet is amazing.... Anyway, it's good to see more people getting the chance to get a PS3

If you export electronics into South America, you have to consider taxes. Electronics being considered luxury goods in Brazil, for example, will be hit by 60% import duties and 18% VAT and possibly other small duties. So if you thought your $600 PS3 was expensive, add roughly 60-100% to the price to get the street price in South America. You can't expect to sell that very many PS3s/XBoxes/Wiis at those end prices (basically none..). Maybe they found a trick to locally produce parts of the gadgets, or the greatly reduced manufacturing costs now make it feasible to export to SA.

Well, I´m from Brazil and I have a 360 (cost me about 1000-1100 dollars - already modded) and I buy bootlegged games for about 10-12 dollars. If I wanted to buy a real game (new) it would cost 140-145 dollars.

For people to get the context, minimum wage in my country is 220-230 dollars. One game is almost the minimum wage. The console is 5 times the minimum wage.

I have seen the PS3 selling as low as 360 (1000-1100 dollars). It´s knowing where to look. The games also costs the same as 360.

I have said it before in other threads that I plan to travel to the USA in January and I ´ll have the opportunity to buy the PS3 at a much cheaper price (hopefully, with a few games).

But in my country, it´s only been a recent thing for the PS2 to be purchased by the masses (modded, of course).

So, I don´t expect the PS3 to be released here for a long, long time.

Well, even though the majority of people can't afford a PS3 there is still a significant number of middle class people who can. Sony launched the PS3 in India, so they should also be able to in Brazil, even if it is only available from a small number of retailers such as Sony Style etc.

This great for Sony. i'm glad their trying to make the PS3 available everywhere. This will help hardware sales.

I guess that Brazil market may be similar in size to Russian, where PS3 broke 100k mark some time ago. Brazilian people are a little bit poorer but there are more of them.

I would say that rest of South America market should be comparable to Brazilian market (total and per capita GDP is similar).
This assumes acceptable prices for consoles, in Russia prices are similiar to EU prices (PS3 around 600-650$)

I think that Central America and Caraiban won't buy much hardware due to proximity to USA. Unless Sony would go really low with prices (less than 500$).

Some of Latin America countries are considered high developed (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Urugway) and some are considered medium developed (Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia). Low developed countries are only in Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index