PlayStation4 will cost 2,000 dollars in Brazil

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.<p>The Next Web did a piece on this last year: <a href="http://thenextweb.com/la/2012/09/30/from-brazil-cost-brazil-profit-why-electronics-expensive-brazil/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thenextweb.com&#x2F;la&#x2F;2012&#x2F;09&#x2F;30&#x2F;from-brazil-cost-brazil-...</a>

It&#x27;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 &amp; import duties makes flights abroad self-financing.

Yep: <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=3999+brazilian+reals+in+usd" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?q=3999+brazilian+reals+in+usd</a><p>(Google Translate should REALLY not translate &quot;reals&quot; to &quot;dollars&quot; though.)<p>This is not unusual at all though: <a href="http://thenextweb.com/la/2012/09/30/from-brazil-cost-brazil-profit-why-electronics-expensive-brazil/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thenextweb.com&#x2F;la&#x2F;2012&#x2F;09&#x2F;30&#x2F;from-brazil-cost-brazil-...</a>

As a Brazilian living in the UK for about 5 years now. It&#x27;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&#x27;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.

I never get tired of saying this: Brazil is a trash bin. And saying this is within my rights.

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).<p>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)

What has led to this situation in Brazil? High wages? Is the situation similar to Australia?