Brazil (Ohga Shrugs)

Brazil is the largest country in South America, both in terms of land area and population. It is a quickly growing market for video games, with consoles in particular becoming more popular as local prices drop and both the economy and the population grow. This is due in part to the increased number of games translated to Portuguese.

Market
Traditionally, Brazil has been a major consumer of older and Sega-developed consoles. Thus, even as the Revolution was coming to dominate the market in the later noughties, the Dreamcast remained popular in the country. Even later on, Brazil remained one of the few markets dominated by Sega, as the Pluto remained well ahead of the Revolution. However, Nintendo has been making up for lost ground over the past ten years.

Brazil's love of Sega systems didn't begin with the Dreamcast. The last official Genesis game in the country was released in 2002, over a decade after launch. In total the Genesis held 70% of the 4th generation marketshare, and the production of various Genesis models continues to this day. Brazil was also one of the few places where Sega's Master system was popular.

Popular games in Brazil include sports titles, especially association football, action-adventure games such as the Assassin's Creed series, and racing games. Game Boy games, though not as popular as in some other parts of the world, are also fairly popular, especially games such as Mario Kart 3D which fall into an aforementioned category.

Economy
The Brazilian video game industry generates over $2 billion of revenue per year. This is due in part to the tens of millions of people who consider themselves gamers, and thus buy video game hardware, software, and peripherals. Brazil is the second largest market for video games in Latin America, behind only Mexico. However, Brazil is expected to overtake Mexico within the next decade, due to high annual growth. Despite this, few games have been developed in Brazil.

The Brazilian game industry has often been hindered by the high local prices. Consoles and software can cost up to a few times as much as their U.S. counterparts, due to a combination of high taxes and import costs. As a result, many Brazilian gamers buy cheaper counterfeit versions of games, or otherwise buy games while traveling to other countries.

Regulation
A component of Brazil's Ministry of Justice is tasked with the local rating system. As all games are required to be rated, many downloadable-only games have never been introduced to the country, and downloadable services have been hindered by said regulations.