This is why we can't have nice things in Brazil

Today Sony announced how much the Playstation 4 will cost in Brazil: R$4,000 (that's US$1,850.95 with today's exchange rate). That's right, over 4 times what it will cost in the US (US$400). This is disgusting. Not that I want a PS4 or anything (or an Xbox One or anything current-gen for that matter), but it's outrageous that something like this can happen. I know our country's import taxes suck balls, but Microsoft somehow (maybe they have factories or assembly lines here?) managed to get the Xbox One down to R$2.200 (US$1,017.85), despite it being US$100 more expensive than the PS4 in the US, so Sony is probably doing something wrong here. I just hope it sells very poorly, and with a price like this I believe I don't even have to hope very hard...

Is there a way to fund a government other than import duties?

Maybe if they stopped stealing they wouldn't need this money...

Is there a way to do without having to fund such things in the first place?

The situation is similar in Sweden, though the mark-up is around 2-3x not 4x; I send stuff (electronics) there usually once a year, because even after the shipping costs it's still cheaper than if one were to buy within Sweden.

I've never shipped anything to Brazil before, but if you were willing to spot me the money up front (plus shipping (I can give estimates for that once I know package size and weight)) I could get you a PS4 when they come out here + send it down there (marked as a "gift" so hopefully no VAT (or whatever Brazil has that's equivalent to VAT)). Looks like Brazil uses 60Hz at 110-127V with some areas using 220-240V, and since you're in Rio de Janeiro you probably use 127V; not sure if you guys use step-up or step-down transformers for US electronics down there.

Let me know privately if interested.

P.S. -- Economy is fucked worldwide, including within the United States (for sake of example, look at average salary + cost of living where I live (Silicon Valley) and compare it to, say, Utah or Missouri or Indiana or Texas or Virginia or Oregon. Only thing worse than here is New York City). It really pisses me off.

The PS4 is (or will be upon release) US$600 in Sweden, including S&H. Some of that 50% mark-up comes from the fact that we've got a 25% sales tax on most goods. And the rest... who the hell knows.

At least your women are hot.

Almost 5 times as much. Can't a friend in another country buy it and ship it in secret to you?

And translating the menus. The EU alone speaks 23 languages.

And the more consumer-friendly warranty laws in the EU and the rest of Europe compared to the United States. Someone at PlayStation probably saw what happened to the Xbox 360 , looked at its own controller, saw a red ring at the far right, saw the similarity of its own forthcoming hardware to that of the Xbox One, and decided to set aside some cash for handling warranty replacement.

AMD APU. It puts the (Xbox) in .

I think this is the case in Brazil as well. Usually, we pay 60% of the declared price of imported goods, but it's possible that they have increased that for electronics recently.


I was serious when I said I have zero interest in current/next-gen consoles, but thanks for the offer. I doubt marking it as "gift" would make any difference though...


This is all correct, US electronics work right out of the box here. Older TVs and VCRs would display black and white images when given NTSC video, but TVs nowadays can handle pretty much anything.


Yeah, this is crazy. Here in Brazil things are pretty fucked up because of the World Cup we're hosting next year, and specially here in Rio since we're also hosting the 2016 Olympic Games. All prices have been steadily rising, and there's no sign of that changing anytime soon. I mean, there are huge Castles in Europe that cost less than houses/apartments in rich areas of Rio.


A lot of them are, indeed. Not as many as the rest of the world seems to think, though.


I really don't want a PS4. =)

Some people are saying that it's slightly cheaper to fly to Miami, buy a PS4 there, spend a couple of nights in a hotel and then fly back to Brazil than just buy the damn thing here. Now that's crazy!

According the the least accurate source but quickest I could come up, it'll be priced CHF449 here - approx. USD 497

It's surprinsing that it's a "normal" price for a brand new video game console. The PS3 was priced above 1000 CHF which was a huge shock back then, as all other consoles were usually in the CHF 300-500 range when they came out.

But there is also the price of games. 10 years ago back when it happened to me to buy new PS2 games, they were CHF 99 (USD 109 at current rate, but it was more like USD 80 with the conversion rate back then) while the same brand new games were $40 in USA and even less in Japan.

Apparently games will cost around R$179.00 (US$82.75) here, which is much more reasonable than the console.

Don't worry; "five hundred and ninety-nine US dollars" made the PS3 launch a joke in the States as well.


New PS2 (NTSC U/C) games tended to run around $50, or around $54 with sales tax. Some of the difference can be attributed to higher sales tax in Europe and the fact that sticker prices in Europe include sales tax. I wonder how much of the rest of the difference is due to having to hire voice actors in multiple languages, get the games rated under multiple countries' rating systems, license the underlying book or film on which a game is based from the publishers' exclusive representatives in multiple countries, etc. I also seem to remember it being more expensive to ship from China and Japan to Europe than to the west coast of North America.

Here In Quebec, Canada, Government Tax Gas, Cigarettes and liquors but Video games are spared and cost about the same as USA.

Aren't like 95% of switching power supplies made these days able to handle everything from 100-240V AC or DC?
Last Time I looked a the typical computer power supply the first thing it did was put everything through a bridge rectifier with filter caps, bringing the voltage to about 320VDC (160 peak to peak * 2). This means you could probably put DC into most computer power supplies, I wonder what the dropout voltage is. Would be an interesting test to see the lowest DC voltage a computer PSU could handle.

One possible problem is that you are then using only half the bridge rectifier continuously, which would be twice the average power those two diodes usually have going through them (since the other two carry the load half the time). This thought came up a while back when people were talking about running their NES with DC. Not saying it would be a problem in either case, just that it's a potential issue.


A snag here is that the lower the voltage, the higher the current (since a switching supply is essentially a negative resistance). Electric distribution uses high voltage because they can run more power as long as they keep the current low (power=current x volts). So at some point you might exceed an internal current rating with lowering the voltage, even though it's drawing the same amount of power.

Japan games price have always been higher compared to the US. In general, unless it's a portable game, the average price is 7300 yen, which depending of the exchange rate at the time, can be between 70$~100$ US when the identical game would be 50$ in the US. The only time it is cheaper these days if it's an American/European game sold in Japan, like "The Last Of Us" since foreign games don't sale well anyway.

@Koitsu

You can try to send something to Brazil but there is no guaranty that the person will receive it in the first place, i.e. post office seems quite, well, not that "straight", if you know what I mean ... I have experience for a small package I sent once.

That's true... I haven't really detected a pattern yet... All Flash carts I got from Krikzz arrived safe and sound (and pretty quickly too!), but the Famicom cart Banshaku sent me just turned into smoke... Since then I also have lost a Game Boy Advance SP Brighter I got on Ebay (ended up buying a beaten up one from a brazilian seller, along with a new housing, which I have yet to replace). There was also a pack of 5 universal game cases that never arrived, but based on the tracking information things went bad for this package while it was still in the US.

I don't know if people really steal these things... I mean, I can imagine someone grabbing my GBA for their nephew or something, but what would a regular person do with a Famicom cart nowadays? Most people probably don't even know what console they're supposed to put that cart in.