Nintendo's next stop: Latin America

by David Hinkle { Aug 15th 2008 at 11:49AM }

With Nintendo having a large share of the market in North America, Europe and Japan, it's now formulating a strategy to get its hands on as many slices of the pie down in Latin America. This new marketing campaign will target non-core gamers and kick off sometime before the busy Christmas season.

"The long-term economic potential of Latin America makes this an extremely important market for video games," said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. "Nintendo has experienced phenomenal growth in the region over the past few years," commented Reggie, who went on further to say that it is "growth that has even surpassed what we have seen in the United States." Nintendo estimates that the market could be worth $2 billion this year.

[Via Go Nintendo]

Tags: advertising, business, europe, japan, latin-america, marketing, north-america

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Moca92 @ Aug 15th 2008 12:04PM

I just want them to lower the prices! 450 dollars for a wii?! WTF?

redefined @ Aug 15th 2008 12:26PM

Well, in Brazil they still selling the Wii for R$1900 (1160 USD) and each game for R$250 (152 USD).

Strangely enough, the PS3 is cheaper than Wii here.

Kralos @ Aug 15th 2008 12:47PM

Yeah, I was gonna come in to say that, unless they lower their prices here, I don't know how they can even think about making their market share grow. I usually just buy stuff in the US whenever I go there on vacation, screw paying 60 dollars for a DS game and 270 for the DS itself.

CJLopez @ Aug 15th 2008 12:55PM

Add the cost of your trip and maybe you 'll see how much it costed you... unless you don't pay that and your parents do.

I go to phoenix once in a while to pay a visit to my sis, trip cost is of 160 on bus, round trip, adding that to the cost of the game, casually 50 or 60 bucks, well, it better buy the game for about 80 buck here, and also i get to play it sonner, I never take my wii/ps3 with me, patrol border are getting more crazy with each passing day. They tried to confiscate my lap cuz they though I might have terrorist plans or something like that in it

Kralos @ Aug 15th 2008 2:40PM

Well, I always travel during summer anyway, so I don't really count it as an extra cost, it's the games that are a nice bonus to my trips. And no, no parents, I always fly by myself. I guess I could afford them, but the ridiculous price difference ticks me off, and I don't feel like giving my money to places like Game Planet ot Liverpool then (I guess I should've mentioned that by "here" I mean I'm in Mexico.)
And when you look at the people who the majority games are directed towards (kids, teens, college students), there's no way in hell they can afford them unless their parents are wealthy and they're spoiled brats, that's why piracy is so rampant around here.

Roto13 @ Aug 15th 2008 12:50PM

I think anyone interested in actually paying for games in Brazil probably imports from North America.

CJLopez @ Aug 15th 2008 12:57PM

Whatever happeneded to GAMELA, i hadn't heard of them in a looooong while.

Gotta ask Club Nintendo about em. The president of it (can't remember his name) was a Mario lookalike, like the guy from the super mario brother movie (man, that movie sucked!!!!)

Mduck @ Aug 15th 2008 2:12PM

I heard nintendo ended their relationship because of the high prices set by Gamela and also because of poor game distribution, this was about 3 or 4 years ago, when you could only buy a GameCube game for a hundred dollars.

Latamel (I think that's what it's called) is now distributing Nintendo's products in latinamerica.

Boo!? @ Aug 15th 2008 1:36PM

Yeah, I really hope this means a price drop... Even though I think I'll keep on importing games, more people buying means more people to play with. I hope to see a casual revolution happening around here too...

Also, maybe (just maybe) this means someday they'll start making software in Portuguese for Brazilian costumers?

Boo!? @ Aug 15th 2008 2:00PM

Eh, forget it. I just took a look at the source (reuters.com) and they don't mention anything about Brazil or portuguese speakers (apparently, the marketing campaign is in spanish only). I hope they have just overlooked it, or else Brazil will be left out of a marketing campaign once again (stupid language barriers...)

Viakenny @ Aug 18th 2008 8:59AM

actually, it's not Spanish-only, since I've seen some Wii Fit ads in Portuguese on Nickelodeon, or Disney Channel, I don't know for sure.

Boo!? @ Aug 18th 2008 10:27PM

Rly? I don't watch these channels so I had no idea. But still, I hope the marketing campaign mentioned in this post will consider portuguese speakers as well =)

fco. @ Aug 15th 2008 1:32PM

It'd be nice to have official support and better prices from Nintendo. Also, I'd love to stop having to say that I live in USA in order to be able to use the Wii Shop.

I just hope this doesn't mean we're gonna have our own releasing schedule, and end up turning into another Australia.

Magnus @ Aug 15th 2008 4:09PM

I really hope they do something about prices. The official price in Argentina is 2400 pesos, or 785 USD. If you buy at import stores or at Mercadolibre, you get a Wii for 460 USD at least, but you won't get any warranty. Legit games are at 80-120 USD depending on where you buy them. Nevertheless, Nintendo won't get a share of the cake unless they do something about lowering prices, especially if there are guys selling consoles for about half what you offer.

Cordi @ Aug 15th 2008 4:20PM

I guess this is good news for the gaming industry in our countries. Nowadays the only (affordable) way to play games is through non-legal methods (piracy-modchips); an original Wii game costs around U$S 100 and the console itself over $550. That´s a lot when your average salary is around $400 per month.

I hope that this new marketing campaign brings along more reasonable prices (i.e. similar to the ones in the US) and not just TV ads on Mtv Latin America.

Robert27 @ Aug 16th 2008 8:11PM

Price Drop on Latin America + good ditribution =WIN

Ridgecity @ Aug 17th 2008 3:41AM

Here in Mexico, the prices in dollars are:

Wii $450
Wii Fit $160
Wiimote $60
New releases $65
most games $30-50

There are no places to fix your console, and repairs for anything are handled by the black market.

Wimote covers are non existant and Wii points also don't exist. it only accepts credit cards not debit for Virtual Console.

DS lite $250 bundles $280
old DS $199
new releases $70
most games $20-50

DS stuff is more expensive in the black market, and they carry many limited edition consoles available only in Nintendo World Store.