The world "Real" in portuguese means both royal, real (truth) and the currencry, and "reais" is the plural for all three.
The currency name derives from "royal" and it's a very old name back from the Monarchy days. _However_, during the Monarchy the plural for the old real-the-currency was "réis". Nowadays the plural for the modern real-the-currency (in use since 1994) is reais, like the other standard uses of "real" of the language.
The Brazilian government has incredibly high taxes on electronics from outside of Brazil. Additionally, the cost of doing business in Brazil is very high. Some manufacturers cave and do assembly in Brazil so they can sell at a more reasonable price. Many do not.
Sony also has.
But they are producing only PS2 and PS3.
Things in Brazil have a higher price not only due the high taxes, but also because the companies and the people. See another example: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/08/11/brazils-rid...
It's common to see Brazilians abroad on vacation loading up on large amounts of consumer products to avoid these super-high import taxes. Apparently in some countries (Venezuela IIRC) a combination of currency controls & import duties makes flights abroad self-financing.
A friend of mine sometimes goes to the US, buys some nice used guitars that he knows are of good value, and sells them when he returns to Brazil, and usually it pays for the trip.
forgot to add: I almost never buy my computer/electronic stuff here. I just order online from the US and sometimes pay customs (it's still cheaper most of the time)
Def. not high wages. As somebody pointed out above, the minimum wage in Brazil is about R$650 (about US$300). These high prices are caused by very high import taxes.
The final customer pays about 100% with everything needed to receive the product at home if bought from US (ebay or whatever) for example. The importation taxes and handling costs alone does not explain this difference. We are gonna see all PS4 consoles coming here from Paraguay as usually.
As a Brazilian, I see these factors (not only for PS4, but for all imported items and some domestically manufactured too):
- Insane taxation ('nuff said);
- Primitive transport infrastructure (bad roads, don't ever try to put something expensive into the postal system (it will be destroyed by mishandling or simply stolen), etc.)
- Dysfunctional economy (change rates float wildly, government manipulation, etc.).
- Inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy (Trying to open a company? Good luck. Trying to close it? Prepare for a nightmare. Needing a permit? Sit and wait, but some public servants may ask money to "speed the things up");
- People are used to pay insane prices for a lot of items (electronic devices, cars, faucets and other bathroom metals (seriously), a housing bubble building up for some years, etc.). This is a major factor, btw. Even there is no real reason for keeping the prices high, they don't fall because people still paying.
By the way, Xbone will be 1000 USD here, this is resulting into terrible PR for Sony here, not for the government, because people are believing that if MS figured how to sell Xbone by 1000 USD, then Sony should have figured how to sell PS4 cheaper than it (beause it is cheaper than it elsewhere).
Sony might need to bite the bullet and sell at loss here if they want to recover their PS2 market share (in PS2 glory days they had 95% of market share, now Xbox 360 has 86% of market share)
As a Brazilian living in the UK for about 5 years now.
It's worth noticing that R$ 678,00 is the current minimum wage in Brazil, which means that it would take around 4 months and 2 weeks to save up, before tax, and not buying anything else in order to get your hands on just the console. I'm 22 and I was very fortunate, to have a family that could provide me pretty much anything I wanted. The contrast between the rich and the poor is so damn high it makes me sick.
Depending on where you live, though, a minimum wage sallary is not a realistic measure of poor people's income. Living in São Paulo for about 6 years now, I've yet to find someone who makes minimum wage. The janitor who cleans my building makes about twice that amount. I think minimum wage is more common in interior cities and in the northern states.
And yes, the contrast between rich and poor is too high. We've thought about moving to Europe, but I think I'll miss the sun too much... I know it sounds silly, but I'm just about to leave São Paulo for its crappy weather, which isn't even that crappy (I can sunbathe in my living room during all winter).
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 56.9 ms ] thread(Google Translate should REALLY not translate "reals" to "dollars" though.)
This is not unusual at all though: http://thenextweb.com/la/2012/09/30/from-brazil-cost-brazil-...
The currency name derives from "royal" and it's a very old name back from the Monarchy days. _However_, during the Monarchy the plural for the old real-the-currency was "réis". Nowadays the plural for the modern real-the-currency (in use since 1994) is reais, like the other standard uses of "real" of the language.
The Next Web did a piece on this last year: http://thenextweb.com/la/2012/09/30/from-brazil-cost-brazil-...
forgot to add: I almost never buy my computer/electronic stuff here. I just order online from the US and sometimes pay customs (it's still cheaper most of the time)
- Insane taxation ('nuff said);
- Primitive transport infrastructure (bad roads, don't ever try to put something expensive into the postal system (it will be destroyed by mishandling or simply stolen), etc.)
- Dysfunctional economy (change rates float wildly, government manipulation, etc.).
- Inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy (Trying to open a company? Good luck. Trying to close it? Prepare for a nightmare. Needing a permit? Sit and wait, but some public servants may ask money to "speed the things up");
- People are used to pay insane prices for a lot of items (electronic devices, cars, faucets and other bathroom metals (seriously), a housing bubble building up for some years, etc.). This is a major factor, btw. Even there is no real reason for keeping the prices high, they don't fall because people still paying.
Sony might need to bite the bullet and sell at loss here if they want to recover their PS2 market share (in PS2 glory days they had 95% of market share, now Xbox 360 has 86% of market share)