Put yourself in Sony’s shoes for a moment. You’ve conquered the three biggest gaming markets out there in Japan, North America and Europe. (The slow start of the PS3, and the still perceived lack of “any” games for it doesn’t appear to lessen Sony’s chances of selling 10 million units by the end of its fiscal year.) Where do you go next? The answer, in no uncertain terms, is Latin America.
Sony Computer Entertainment America’s vice-president of sales, one Ian Jackson, recently gave a 20-minute speech at some conference where he explained Sony’s position: Latin America is key to the PlayStation’s growth.
The reasons are obvious. The area’s population is huge at 569 million people. It has a history of being under-served by the big gaming companies (hence the prevalence of piracy). Plus there’s the language barrier, or lack thereof, as Sony would only have to localize games into two languages (Spanish and Portuguese).
What’s to stop Sony from taking its still-selling PS2 and re-introducing it to Latin American gamers, easing them into gaming?
Nothing, apparently.
Now we play the waiting game.