Next Gen prices... in Brazil. Prepare to be scared

So instead of buying 5 PS4's and trying to sell them on Craigslist or Ebay when they in demand at Christmas, book a trip to Brazil and sell them while your there. Instant free trip to Brazil.

 

With the World Cup coming up in Brazil in like 9 months... That might not be a bad a idea at all.

 

Haha, like I said before. I'd love to see you try and bring several PS4s into Brazil with you. Looks like some airport workers will be going home with some free PS4s that day...

 

Things are getting overpriced here just like pre-1994.

I remember the NeoGeo AES costed the same as a car here, back than: a Fusca (the beatle car).


But reality is that Paraguay has really low taxes and it has boarders with Brazil. It will start all over again like the 16-bit era. We will have tons of next gen consoles coming from the boarder.
It's a shot on the toe for everyone:

1. The government won't get taxes because every console will get it's way here illegally.
2. Sony stained it's reputation once again as a greedy company (rootkit scandal, PSN credit card's scandal, hackers being arrested)
3. Money will end up on corrupt patrol boarder officers and who knows where it will end to.

It's a loose loose situation.

 

That's what I thought, Brazil defending it's domestic market with bribes and threats of violence ^^ .

 

I take the guys in paraguay wont sell without a nice cut for themselves right? and what about warranty and such?

 

Majority of the price is taxes thanks to your government , so if you have to pay that at customs on top of Miami... Insane prices and it shouldn't be higher than Xbox One (though Xbox One is overpriced even with Kinect that most people probably don't want) but just under 3 quarters of the price is a ludicrous tax your government has that you cannot blame Sony for one iota.

 

Yeah this might occur but since the government slice for importation is 70% including the shipping they can get a lot of profit and still sell it cheaper.



Since laws, justice and all that first world stuff doesn't exist here warranty isn't a concern to people here. When something breaks here even if you have the "rights" for it you won't get another one or get yours fixed.

You are lucky if the stores didn't send you a rock instead of a video game here:


This is true story about a store here named Submarino.

 

Many brazilian sites already did all math with all taxes Sony have to pay over the MSRP price in USA. It doesn't even pass 2.000 Reais. The rest is just Sony Brazil acting like they always do. The Xbox One will cost 2.200 Reais because exactly because of that extra 100 dollars on the final price. Microsoft are being honest to say the least.

Anyway, this is not just with the PS4 i might say. I gave some money to my parents couple weeks ago, so they could buy me a PS Vita for me... in Portugal.
They got me a PSVita Mega Pack (console + 8GB memory card + 10 games voucher) and Killzone Mercenary. All that for almost HALF the price of what Sony Brazil asks for it. And i'm not even counting the VAT refund!

The PSVita with nothing (memory card or games), sold by Sony Brazil, costs 1.399 Reais = 471 Euros
http://store.sony.com.br/br/site/ca...f=catalogue&category=dvd&tabNum=1&id=PCH-1010

PSVita Mega Pack + Killzone Mercenary in Portugal for 239,98 Euros = 715 Reais.

That's it, simply ridiculous.

 

It's funny how people seem to ignore the real world, because it's more fun the speculate about fairy tales?
That's what I and another person already implied: the Brazillian rulers (not the front figures) of this part of the domestic market impose barriers to defend their interests. This is how it works in countries like Brazil. Wether they're carried out through bribes or threats or both. Sony and others have little to gain by setting ridiculous prices like this, they are there to keep Sony off the market. It's obvious they're going to lose to xbox one in Brazil (really they're going to lose to megadrive, ps1/2 and maybe 360) with these kind of prices. The whole "exclusive" image isn't going to cover for this.

 

, said the Russian ^^. You're also speculating too, how come you're so sure they were threatened? By Microsoft? The acts of Sony, while stupid, matches the past pricing "strategies" of the PS3 era.

 

I remember some similar shit happening to a few people buying ipods at bestbuy a few years ago and getting boxes full of gravel. It was either the employees or a previous buyer who took the ipod and returned the box with rocks hoping it would be restocked without checking, which apparently it was.

But seriously, no respect for warranties? has anyone even tried suing to change this over there?

 

Yeah, because the last thing you need in Brazil is Portuguese subtitles /sarcasm/

I thought TecToy had moved on to those Sega Genesises that play a guitar hero knock off?

I hear that's happening with iPhones in the States now, they take them, put in some clay at the same weight, return them (apparently the customer service people don't actually look at the phone) and pocket the cash.

 

How do you know I'm russian? You're right I have no actual proof of my claims. These things tend to get obvious once you've experinced them first hand, like most people in eastern europe have.
It's obvious that the market has been divided for the players. If you look at it logically Sony has more to lose with those prices. For some reason (300 million people market?) they are stubborn to be officially represented nevertheless. And it's obvious that in a country like Brazil, money and violence rules: not law. Of course they're not being threatened by MS, MS is a player like Sony. I'm talking about the owners of the game (country). Capitalists, mafia, corrupt officials etc.

 

I know, and I'm not actually North Korean. Can you guess from which country I'm posting from?
While our government is pretty corrupt it didn't get on that level yet! What I meant is that it might just be a marketing strategy to make the PS4 a "status" item since they'll sell out their tiny stock of PS4s for launch either way. Of course the strategy backfired.
Sony Brazil is known for inflating prices heavily. When they came to brazil the PS3 got a late launch for R$1900... when the stores carried them over for R$1000~1200. Suddenly every large chain had set the price to the Sony standard. It took a long time to get to R$1300 again. That plus the inflated prices of tv sets, notebooks, etc. makes me think that it's more a case of stupid management + high taxes than corruption.

Location: Eurasian Federative Union

 

Well since you say "our government" I'll say you're from Brazil ^^
Fixing prices on videogames is nothing: favelas, drugs, prostitution and poverty is something you can call "that level".
Yet I never used the word government, I said "owners of the country: capitalists, mafia, corrupt officials and the like" you can interpret that how you want but it doesn't mean specifically government.
About the status thing, I'm going to say this again that "status" niche isn't going to do much good for sony, it's not covering their potential loss of income with those prices. You say that they did the same thing with PS3 and still it really doesn't make it any less probable.
For example if they already dominate some other segment of the entertainment market (tv sets, stereos, music/movie business?). Or maybe they just refuse to pay local "taxes" *cough*extortion money/bribes*cough*.

Actual example, IKEA in Ukraine/Russia: IKEA gave up on Ukraine and closed all of it's stores there (because all of their stores got extorted for protection money and general bribes) and stopped the expansion in Russia (same reason). And so IKEA known in Sweden as a cheap furniture retailer is known in Russia as a premium "scandinavian designer" furniture store.

Yes but that could mean EU? That's actually what i meant but put it in another form.

 

So in other words even by your anecdotal evidence almost 50 percent of the cost is your government's taxes alone. Also, I don't buy that... Here: http://blog.br.playstation.com/2013/10/21/gamers-brasileiros-nos-ouvimos-voces/






Sony uses its loss leader strategy at launch in economies that don't have arcane costs on video games that seem to artificially squeeze the legitimate market of a country with a large middle class. I agree Microsoft's making more sense though, but neither PS4 or Xbox One sales can compete to international sales despite your huge population, I'm sorry. That's a disgusting tax grab.

Neither Sony or Microsoft can really compete at those prices, even though Microsoft's is far, far lower. Sony Brazil sounds horrible though, simply horrible...as are your import taxes on video games.

 

Sony Brazil buys from Sony US or Japan paying full retail price LOL.

Sony Brazil has absolute no concessions from it's foreign parts.
So if I had a tomato industry here I could sell the PS4 cheaper than Sony itself can. It's ridiculous.

 

There are some flaws on that:

1. How come Sony Brazil pays the USA MSRP price for each console? They don't need the box and manuals (english) and the power cord (different standard). They purchase a sealed boxed unit, open it, get rid of manuals, power cord, then put it in another box, with a new manual and power cord. Is that so?! They can produce the whole package and manuals here, not to mention the power cord. They buy it at the factory, and the price is lower than $399 / R$858.

2. The profit margin is pathetic, R$875, higher than the original cost of the console itself. Even analists say that: http://info.abril.com.br/games/noti...e-preco-absurdo-do-ps4-mas-nega-reducao.shtml

Some quotes: "There are nebulous points in the Sony explanation", "The taxes maths are in line with Brazilian's law", "But first we need to know the real price of the PS4 arriving the Brazil", "22% profit margin is huge. You can even compare with others equipments like TV".

3. Even if all that is true, it's just plain stupid to release it a 4.000 Reais. The Xbox One was announced at 2.200, but there are already some sites accepting pre-orders with prices like 1.950 Reais.

4. Game software are affected by the exact same taxes (PS4 games will be imported as well), but how come they'll be priced at 180 Reais? (82 dollars, only 22 dollars more than in USA). By the way, PS4 games will be cheaper than Sony Brazil used to charge for imported first party PS3 games, not a long time ago.

5. They act like they're generous as losing 258 Reais for unit. We know every console, is sold at loss at launch. And here's where the big problem appears. Sony Brazil, Sony Argentina and so on are just distributors. There's no "SCELA". Latin America is just a branch of SCEA, so i bet they don't give a damn if we buy it here or in Miami (or even Paraguay, the tech gadget mall for latin america).

And to end, i really wanna know how much it cost them to produce PS3 games here.
They press the game discs (first party) in Manaus (tax free region), with terrible art print quality, use pathetic blu-ray cases comparable to piracy products (that get bent easily), with smaller cover with no internal art (except in some rare games) and the final price is the same or a little bit more than USA MSRP. Wonder how much money they profit on each game...

EDITED:

Good discussion about the topic (in Portuguese): http://forum.outerspace.terra.com.b...de-legislação-tributária-chega-aí-p-4.353053/

Basicly, lawyers and people that work with taxes and import / export pointing out that there are lots of mistakes on the price. They even mention taxes are being charged twice, meaning Sony of Brazil is completely wrong with their maths.

 

Last time I heard about paraguay they were getting a base built by the military (not theirs, American) because the place is full of islamic terrorist cells and drug plantations so tbh I wouldn't go shopping there, the forecast seems to be a lot of drones flown by highschool dropouts somewhere in nevada.

That profit margin is insane even without considering that most consoles are sold at a loss during launch.

Besides apple I don't know any other electronics company that makes that much, not consistently.