Last week Sony announced that the Brazilian PlayStation 4 will cost the equivalent of $1,800. Fans, were to say the least, not happy. Sony returned to the PlayStation Blog with a message: “We heard you.”
Sony’s General Manager for Latin America Mark Stanley acknowledged the price wasn’t good for anybody. It wasn’t good for the customers, wasn’t good for the company nor the PlayStation brand. They decided to be completely transparent about the price.
Apparently about 63% of that cost is because of fees and taxes during the importation process. The result is those costs get passed on to retailers who in turn pass it on to customers. Stanley wrote, “We will continue dialogue with government agencies to help us reduce the heavy tax burden that gamers, retailer and Sony Computer Entertainment America must pay.”
This actually has a history in Brazil. Originally SEGA lobbied the government to establish high tariffs on importing consoles so they could have a stranglehold on the market because the SEGA Genesis were manufactured in Brazil, which meant it wasn’t subject to those tariffs. Unfortunately a lot of those laws are still in effect even with SEGA out of the console business. You can still buy a brand new Genesis in Brazil on cheap though.
Stanley actually floated the idea of manufacturing the PS4 in Brazil to get around the taxes like SEGA did back in the day. Sony has been manufacturing the PS3 down there since May of this year.