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Forums - Sony - PS3 will officially launch in Latin America this year....

zexen_lowe on 17 July 2008

The problem, and the reason that a legal distribution of games will never be very succesful, besides the taxes, is the dollar conversion rate. For example, 1 dollar equals here around 3 pesos. But if a good salary in the US is around U$S 2000, here a good one isn't 6000 pesos, but 2000 pesos. Now, for non-imported products, that's not a problem, for example if a carton of milk costs in the US 1 dollar, here it costs 1 peso. But with imported products, the dollar value is converted into pesos, and also taxed. So if a game here retailed for 50 pesos, nobody would complain and a lot of people would buy originals. But they retail for 200 pesos or more, so you can't expect them to buy originals when you can get a bootleg for 10 pesos or less




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The Anarchyz on 18 July 2008

I live in Panama, and we get consoles and games 2 weeks after the NA launch (we even got the different bundles), and the J-consoles and J-games in the underground asian market 3 weeks after J-launch, since it is a dollarized and NTSC-based country the prize is not that crazy like in Brazil, and the taxes are not that high, hell we have the Colon Free Zone where we have real tax-free stuff (is not open for everyone but when you have the contacts is sweet)...

Now, all the consoles and games that we have here are imports mostly from the US market (and rarely i find Wiis here), but if Sony begins to ship directly that should lower the prices, not to the US level, but close...



BKK2 on 18 July 2008

Wii launched in Latin America around the same time as NA.

In a recent games convention held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, an executive of Lamatel (distributor of Nintendo products in Latin America) revealed that the Wii will head on to the Brazilian shores on the first week of December.

While this may be a cause for celebration for our Carnival-loving friends, the euphoria might be cut short by the expected price point. The next-gen console is said to cost between 1,400 and 1,500 Reais. In greenback, that's between $640 and $690. With such exorbitant price, we think that the Wii wouldn't be too appealing to Brazilian gamers. But for sure, hardcore Ninty fans wouldn't mind the steep price point. There's still the import option - if our Brazilian friends are willing to shoulder high import tax, that is. No matter what option they choose, they'd still end up with a very expensive console.

We're not quite sure if this will cheer you up, but Lamatel also confirmed that Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess will be a launch title. The problem is it's the only launch title confirmed for the Brazilian release. We're hoping there'll be more.


Link

According to Wikipedia it also launched in Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, and Chile at the same time. It's Wikipedia, so I wouldn't take it as gospel that Wii launched in all of those countries, but it's reasonable to assume it probably did in at least some of them.

As for 360, you can see which countries Microsoft supports here.

Latin American countries are:

Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico.

I thought PS3 launched officially in Mexico last August, and it's available from Sony Style there, but I now think this was some kind of semi-offical launch as Mexico was never added to the list of selectable countries available when setting up a PSN account. Everytime PS3 has previously launched in a new country that country has been added to PSN set up, but this wasn't the case for Mexico.

I think the local Sony Style has just imported their PS3 stock directly from US themselves rather than it being a real official release. There is no support for Mexico on the PlayStation site either.



The Anarchyz on 18 July 2008

My bad, the Wii launched here in Panama the same week as NA, Wikipedia is right, i checked with a friend that has a VG business here...

The PS3 and the 360 are available in stores, but they don't have an official release like the Wii.



Rock_on_2008 on 18 July 2008

The majority of people of Latin American countries will not be able to afford PS3's. I would not hold my breath for good sales of PS3 in countries located in South America and other Latin American countries. PS3 consoles are rumoured to sell for around $1000 US in Brazil and Argentina.

Bear in mind small markets guarantees higher prices for consoles and games. That is how things work. USA and Japan pay the lowest prices for consoles and games due to having large video game markets. Europe, South America, Australiasian countries pay higher prices for consoles and games due to having much smaller video game markets in comparison to USA and Japan.



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BKK2 on 18 July 2008
SlorgNet said:
Actually, Sony should be doing more than just distribution in Latin America, a region of the world undergoing vast (and overwhelmingly positive) social and political change. They should be investing heavily in local studios -- e.g. Brazil-themed FIFA games, tie-ins with Lat Am's bourgeoning media cultures, etc. The result will not only be great games at affordable prices, but will also reduce piracy and encourage consumers to buy legit (because legit purchases support their local media industry) - win-win for everyone.

Sony's experience in Russia was that piracy starts to disappear around the $7,500 per capita GDP level. Basically, once consumers can afford to buy legitimate media at reasonable prices, they do so - it's easier and more convenient, people want decent customer service, etc. A number of Lat Am countries are at or close to this mark:

Chile $9879
Venezuela $8596
Mexico $8479
Brazil $6983
Argentina $6606

(This is IMF data for 2007).

I agree that Sony should be doing more than just distribution, but before investing in local studios and local content I think they need to bring prices down to a reasonable level on existing products. These thoughts are primarily aimed at PS2.

The first thing they need to do is bring down the price of software by eliminating import duty and start replicating games in South America. Sony have started doing this in India which is probably currently much a smaller market than Latin America. My guess is Sony already plan to do this for PS2, but for PS3 it may not be so easy due to BD replication facilities not being widespread. The size of the market probably doesn't warrant investment in this.

That will take care of import duty, but even US prices are prohibitiely high for most people, especially when compared to a pirated version, so Sony need sell their PS2 games a lot cheaper than they do in developed nations. In India PS2 games start from Rs. 499 ($12), they need a similar pricing scheme in Latin America.

It's not so easy to manufacture hardware there, but it's been done before. Tectoy, a Brazilian company who used to be Sega's distributor obtained the licensing from Sega to manufacture Master Systems in Brazil. It ended up selling over 2 million, and actually still sell a version which comes with the games built in. PS2 should be simple enough by now that it's feasible to start production in Brazil for the domestic market, and if not now, it should be feasible at some point in the future.

As for local content, I'm sure a Brazilian version of Singstar would be a cheap low risk way to start.

I think Sony probably has at least some of this planned, as Kaz Hirai had this to say at the last TGS:

Further Expansion of the PlayStation®2 business

In the 8th year from launch, PlayStation 2 still sees steady demands particularly in North America and Europe. Reaching the remarkable milestone of the 120 millionth shipment in the 7th year from launch, PlayStation 2 will have longer-tail business compared to its predecessor, the original PlayStation. Targeting at further expanding the business into the emerging markets, SCEI will continue to vigorously promote PlayStation 2, by introducing more and more exciting new games.

Sony Press Release

Clearly the Latin American distribution announcement is the start of Sony's future plans for PS2 mentioned at TGS.

 



Skeeuk on 18 July 2008

i think ps3 will sell many consoles in south america.
and sell many games also.



...not much time to post anymore, used to be awesome on here really good fond memories from VGchartz...

PSN: Skeeuk - XBL: SkeeUK - PC: Skeeuk

really miss the VGCHARTZ of 2008 - 2013...

The Anarchyz on 18 July 2008
Rock_on_2008 said:

The majority of people of Latin American countries will not be able to afford PS3's. I would not hold my breath for good sales of PS3 in countries located in South America and other Latin American countries. PS3 consoles are rumoured to sell for around $1000 US in Brazil and Argentina.

Bear in mind small markets guarantees higher prices for consoles and games. That is how things work. USA and Japan pay the lowest prices for consoles and games due to having large video game markets. Europe, South America, Australiasian countries pay higher prices for consoles and games due to having much smaller video game markets in comparison to USA and Japan.

That's not always true, Brazil is the 5th country with most population in the world (behind China, India, US and Indonesia) with 187,276,000, Argentina has 40,677,348 people (50th), their % of people who buy VGs is small compared to the US, Japan and Europe ones, is a fact, but is not smaller than the Panama market, which has 3,343,000 people (133rd), and we still get most of the time the cheapest consoles in all Latin America (except Puerto Rico because they get the NA price).



Ucraneo on 18 July 2008
Rock_on_2008 said:

The majority of people of Latin American countries will not be able to afford PS3's. I would not hold my breath for good sales of PS3 in countries located in South America and other Latin American countries. PS3 consoles are rumoured to sell for around $1000 US in Brazil and Argentina.

 

Consoles in Mexico are not that overpriced if you know where to look for them (avoid stores like wallmart etc.) and games are in a very similar range to the US price. The main problem is people do not think of buying bootlegs and modding their consoles as stealing, which is extremely saddening and shows you why there are no big localization efforts made for latin america even though some countries in others share the same language. Why put an effort in a market that steals your product. It's a shame.

 

The Latin America announcement is about the PSN Store. You can't buy stuff online from latin america as far as I know.



"He who forgets will be destined to remember."

The Anarchyz on 18 July 2008
Ucraneo said:

The Latin America announcement is about the PSN Store. You can't buy stuff online from latin america as far as I know.

That might be true, but the Little Big Planet chart (i still say that was PHREAKING AWESOME) showed the distribution in Latin America with a bunch of PS3 with "aji" falling into trucks, and Jack Tretton was saying "Starting from August 2008, we'll engage distribution in Latin America.