Game Focus Germany- Day Two

The final day of GFG also offered a great mix of speeches touching on a variety of topics from IP Development, Social Game Design, the Future of Journalism, etc.  I previously mentioned that there would be a discsussion on the games industry in Brazil and I’d like to share some of the information from this lecture.

Emiliano de Castro, the VP of Abra Games (the Brazilian Game Developer’s Association),  ran down a list of some surprising stats:

– Brazil is the fourth largest PC market (behind the US, China, and Japan)

– (1) PC is sold every three seconds

– Brazil is the number one country in the world for residential PC usage per PC owner at 25 hours a month

– There is a 95% (!)  piracy rate

Due to the staggering piracy rate and an extremely heavy import tax on hardware, the PS3 and Wii are ultimately non-existent in the country.  The 360 is the only game in town.  Sony recently announced they’d be opening a factory to manufacture the PS3 so that console will soon enter the market.

However, a new console, “The Zeebo,” has been announced that will debut in Brazil in July of 2009.  The “Zeebo” will then enter other “emerging” countries such as India, China, and Russia.  The cool thing about the Zeebo is that it is solely a digital distribution system (gotta fight their piracy problem).  The system will operate on a 3G wireless network.  Sounds pretty interesting right?  Major companies such as EA, Activision, Capcom, SEGA, amd several others have already signed up.   The games are projected to cost between $10-30 and the system will retail at $258 (USD).