By William Jones, Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – As many shoppers flooded the streets for Black Friday – the American shopping tradition that has become popular in Brazil – many have found that the brand new Playstation 4 (PS4) has finally been released by manufacturer Sony. However, getting your hands on the hotly-anticipated device comes at a stinging price of R$3,999 (US$1,700).
The high price of purchasing the new device is a result of the high levels of import tax incurred when transporting Sony’s next generation of computer gaming to Brazil, a country with a notoriously heavy duty burden on imports.
After the console was made available to the general public in South America, widespread discontent spread among gamers over the astronomical expense of the good which will undoubtedly be at the top of many peoples Christmas lists. In a statement, Marc Stanley, Sony’s General Manager for Latin America, defended the company.
“We have read thousands of your comments and heard your frustration loud and clear about the PlayStation 4 retail price of R$3,999 in Brazil. We want to emphasize that it isn’t in the interest of Sony Computer Entertainment America to sell PS4 units at this high retail price. It’s not good for our gamers and it’s not good for the PlayStation brand,” he said.
“There is much confusion and inaccurate information in online coverage on policies of import taxes in Brazil and on the retail price of the PlayStation 4, so we would like to clarify things. Of the R$3,999, 63 percent of this amount is allocated to compensate for the taxes and fees that are applied to the product during the import process,” Stanley said.
As the console competes with its rival Microsoft, who released the Xbox One recently in the UK and Europe, the console will cost in the region of £349 (US$570) compared to the United States, where it will cost around US$399. However, these prices seem to be drops in the ocean compared to the R$4,000 price tag here in Brazil.
Read more (in Portuguese).
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