14 DAY TRIAL // We sometimes take consoles for granted, as, although we can find them in the three big territories where gaming is fully developed – Japan, North America and Europe –, we sometimes forget that regions such as Latin America have been deprived of official support for consoles, regardless of the manufacturer, and relied on people from the aforementioned countries to supply them with products.
But realizing the importance of these territories, Sony has just announced that it will introduce its PlayStation branded products, the PS3, the PS2 and the PlayStation Portable, to the regions, thus expanding into a very big, but also piracy-dominated market. Although the illegal phenomenon is quite frequent, Sony hopes that, with great customer support for these products, things will change in the near future.
“Our commitment to expand PlayStation business into Latin America supports our vision to provide access to social entertainment experiences that can be shared among friends and family from around the world,” said Mark Stanley, director and general manager, Latin America, SCEA. “This expansion is the direct result of us listening closely to our community, and we're proud to deliver premium hardware and software services that will allow them to easily connect, play and communicate with one another.”
The products will be launched in three stages across 13 countries from the subcontinent. Phase one will include Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Peru, phase two will cover Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela, and finally phase three will target Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. Also, Latin users will be able to find a localized section on the PlayStation.com website, where they can access resources about titles and products in their own language.
It seems that while Sony isn't in the best financial situation, investments will still be made and the big company would like to profit from the big markets present in the countries from Latin America. Whether or not it breaches the high piracy rate is something that we'll just have to wait and see though.