• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Xbox To Stop Selling Physical Games In Brazil

Naked Lunch

Member
I could care less about sales but I was always under the assumption that Xbox did very well in Brazil.
They have had at least 2 Xbox showcase shows hosted there - and somewhat recently. Pretty sure an Xbox launch showcase happened there too.

And playing Xbox online games always have huge brazilian communities. They're the dudes with the BR in their names or clan tags.
I know this because, for some reason, those BR players are usually completely fucking terrible at games and ruin entire matches. I have nightmares of the legions of awful [BR] World of Tanks and Battlefield players throughout the Xbox 360, XB1, and now Series consoles. Its been a running joke for years at this point - but it probably boils down to SA players getting (unfortunately) matched with NA (and elsewhere) connections.
 
Last edited:

Jaybe

Member
LOL. Some of you have some really outdated visions about the video games market in Brazil. GamePass is a huge success in Brazil, that’s all this news is about.
AIXN00T.jpg
 

marquimvfs

Member
Sony support and store left Brazil long ago.
Not for Playstation, no. They don't own any store for the brand anymore, but still have official presence and support for the Playstation.
Doesn't Brazil make a good portion of their physical game sales via grey market imports? I thought I read that somewhere
It is true for the Switch and was true for the rest for, maybe, 2 generations ago. But now, by manufacturing here, the tax incentives makes the localised versions cheaper than the imported ones. Not mentioning the Dollar to Brazilian Real ratio, that is pretty much fucked up in recent years comparing to PS3 era, for example.
 
Last edited:

kaizenkko

Member
I could care less about sales but I was always under the assumption that Xbox did very well in Brazil.
They have had at least 2 Xbox showcase shows hosted there - and somewhat recently. Pretty sure an Xbox launch showcase happened there too.

And playing Xbox online games always have huge brazilian communities. They're the dudes with the BR in their names or clan tags.
I know this because, for some reason, those BR players are usually completely fucking terrible at games and ruin entire matches. I have nightmares of the legions of awful [BR] World of Tanks and Battlefield players throughout the Xbox 360, XB1, and now Series consoles. Its been a running joke for years at this point - but it probably boils down to SA players getting (unfortunately) matched with NA (and elsewhere) connections.


Playstation sells much, much more in Brazil. Today Microsoft Brazil is practically irrelevant. They did not participate in the BGS (largest game event in Latin America), for example, while Playstation had the largest stand at the event.

Best selling on Games and Consoles at Amazon BR:

mais_vendidos.png



Playstation Brazil is also participating in the global marketing event "Live From PS5":

 
Last edited:

Reallink

Member
My understanding was that average wages are very very low in Brazil. I would have assumed the lack of cracks/piracy on the new consoles would have made physical discs >80% of the market and the only viable way most Brazilian's could afford to play Xbox (due to the abililty to resell, trade, or buy used), but if MS's has determined this makes business sense, apparently the internet has embellished and misled me on the "poverty" of the aggregate Brazilian population.
 
Last edited:

feynoob

Gold Member
Gamestop was just a victim of the growth of digital sales. If you go to a mall here, most dedicated videogame stores dont also last many yeras, thanks to covid even the biggest dedicated retailer closed they physical store, and they are reoping it again this year, but thers always big stores that sell more than videogames that will not close. These are the stores that soon will not have any Xbox present in they shelves. And this where alot of casual ppl go look at games while they go in a weekend stroll to the mall.

Just out of curiosity u can visit the main page of the most popular dedicated vedeogame online shop here. And tell me how many xbox games you see in they main page, that by default should be showing the popular section.

https://www.gamingreplay.com/pt/
Some stores will not have Xbox physical disc simply due to the brand not having a lot of presence in these areas.
More Presence=more sales=more physical copies.

With xss, those physical disc also drops down a lot.

The only thing I can say is that you are lucky to have stores like that in your area.
 

SHA

Member
Neil Degrasse Tyson should have his own piece about it cause it has to do with physical objects.
 

Soosa

Banned
When you have gamepass, it easy to hook people to digital store.
MS wants to eliminate that physical sales so they can make more money through digital sales.
Scummy move.
And some people just dont buy xbox games at all when they have gamepass.

I have had series x for 14 months now and just bought my first game for it, the quarry for xbox one were 10€ on disc so i got it. Sadly xbox doesnt offer series x upgrade for disc version at all. Only other thing I have bought were 2 planes for flight simulator. Not a single digital game.

94€ for 36 months of GPU, pretty cheap gaming.

When I had ps4/5 only I spent like 500-1000€/year on games, lot of buying and selling physical games so not lost it all.

But anyway, gamepass kills my need to buy xbox games, and there rarely Even is any abox games outside of gamepass that are interesting, or I just wait them to get free.

On our physical stores there have been like 0-20 % games for xbox/nintendo and rest are for ps4/5, so I xbox clearly have less demand for physical games here.

And I think that series x is pretty great, but really different ecosystem in a way. For Playstation it is easier to buy and sell used games, so that counts too.
 

ZoukGalaxy

Gold Member
Yeah it sucks. But Steam has showed that it works, digital console sales are rising and Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo would love it because:

- no production costs
- no logistics
- no share to retailers
- no reselling of games
Yeah, more control, less freedom.

We're screwed because consoles =/= PC
 
Last edited:

Draugoth

Gold Member
How does that work for customers in Brazil that did though? People bought XSX with a disk drive. I would think a number of them were expecting to be able to buy disk games.

For people like me who like physical games? It's absolutely fucking terrible.

The best way to save money on games is to buy the games on the used market, which is something i did and why some people might also opted out for the XSX (also due to it's horsepower) unless you wanted some of the pre order stuff, have the money or wanted to play games at release, there is not much reason to buy new games.

Gaming in Brazil is completely overpriced and i can see a lot of people jumping into PlayStation because of the decision.
 
Last edited:

ecentre

Member
Thats what we get when we bought the idea of gamepass. Just watch them roll out this in other countries and weep! End of gaming...
 

lucbr

Member
Guys, Brazil is a relevant market:

- According to Newzoo, a top 10 market by game revenue - https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-10-countries-by-game-revenues.
- Acorrding to Sony, Brazil is the PS4 8th market: Unprecedented China Demand
- Its the 5th country on Steam by traffic - Download Stats

I couldn't find Game Pass official numbers, but posts like these from Xbox Wire and tweets like these from developers suggest that GamePass is very successful in Brazil:

We’ve also enabled Cloud Gaming in more places, like Mexico, Japan, Australia, and Brazil. The gaming community has been phenomenal in all these new countries, and Brazil in particular has blown away our expectations. Adoption was so overwhelming in the first couple weeks that the demand from fans exceeded our server capacity to the point we had to quickly move to deploy more hardware to keep up with demand.

Some additional Descenders stats: Game Pass downloads in the 2nd year were much higher than the 1st (graph below shows player numbers over the last 12 months) - We now see more than 1m sessions every single month - Our biggest countries are the US, UK, Brazil, Canada and Australia

Also, I know that it's very old news but when Phil Spencer came to Brazil for the first time in 2015 he said in a interview that brazil should easily be in the top 5 for Xbox.

All I'm saying is that Brazil is not a small market, but a market where price and services like GamePass make a big difference. For instance, Xbox Series S was the best selling console on Amazon Brazil in 2022 - https://br.ign.com/descontos/105054/news/quais-foram-os-consoles-mais-vendidos-em-2022. I suspect that in other stores the result was no different. I have the XSX and I like to buy games on disc, but it's no surprise to me if they indeed stop selling Xbox physical games.
 

SlimeGooGoo

Party Gooper
All I'm saying is that Brazil is not a small market, but a market where price and services like GamePass make a big difference
Interestingly enough, Brazil seems to be one of the top countries with Netflix subscriptions.

I assume subscription services can perform really well in the country.
 

The Shepard

Member
I'll be surprised if PS6 and next Xbox have optical drives.

For better or worse, digital only games are becoming the norm of the present/future of console gaming.
Console gaming will follow the example of PC gaming... physical games are disappearing.

Disks will still be a thing next gen but I imagine you'll be paying a premium. There's still a big collectors market after all. Think Xbox will be first to go full digital whenever it happens, Nintendo last.
 
Well, this is probably due to low demand from consumers and therefore, low orders from retailers that don't want to waste valuable spaces on items that are collecting dust.

The consoles with a higher physical presence are the Switch and the PS5 so orders from retail are constant due to higher demand. Let's face it, Xbox's physical presence is almost non-existent due to low demand outside of the US and UK (both consoles and games)
Right... Except that Xbox is more popular in Brazil than either Playstation or Nintendo.

This is the problem with buying into the whole "Xbox only competes in US/UK and is irrelevant everywhere else" narrative. It leads to further misunderstanding and the spreading of fud because of it.
I'm from Brazil and physical games sells very well here, the problem is that Xbox sells very, very poorly. Here, the average is 7 or 10 PS5's for each Xbox. No exaggeration.

But worst of all, there are rumors that Microsoft intends to shut down pt-br game localization altogether.
Yikes! Good thing being from a country doesn't make you an authority on the matter.

Brazil is predominantly Xbox territory. Despite kaizenkko's claim, Xbox actually outsells both Playstation and Nintendo there. Gamepass is a huge reason for that, and likely a major reason for this move if true.
 

Draugoth

Gold Member
Interestingly enough, Brazil seems to be one of the top countries with Netflix subscriptions.

I assume subscription services can perform really well in the country.

It's more due to price. Netflix is only 20 reais (5 dollars) a month meanwhile a XSX/PS5 game is 70-$77 per copy, which is a lot if you consider average wages in the country.
 

GrayDock

Member
Brazil is predominantly Xbox territory. Despite kaizenkko's claim, Xbox actually outsells both Playstation and Nintendo there. Gamepass is a huge reason for that, and likely a major reason for this move if true.
Not that I don't believe you, but where that info came from?
Because if it is true, CADE wouldn't allow MS/Xbox to acquire ABK so easily;
And the CADE docs say that PS had 50-60% marketshare, XB 30-40% and Nintendo 0-10%, which doesn't add to your info.
I believe the Gamepass grow in Brazil is probably PC - wise, (anedoctal) all my Pc player friends sub to it.
 

kaizenkko

Member
Not that I don't believe you, but where that info came from?
Because if it is true, CADE wouldn't allow MS/Xbox to acquire ABK so easily;
And the CADE docs say that PS had 50-60% marketshare, XB 30-40% and Nintendo 0-10%, which doesn't add to your info.
I believe the Gamepass grow in Brazil is probably PC - wise, (anedoctal) all my Pc player friends sub to it.
This guy has no idea what he's saying. Anyone who lives in Brazil knows how strong the Playstation brand is. Here we literally grew up playing Playstation, and in the One/PS4 generation Playstation gained even more territory. Anyone who frequents forums, social networks or simply talks to people knows that these are two brands that, frankly, don't even compare (I'm not referring to quality, but popularity).

And, in Brazil, Microsoft has been drastically reducing marketing in relation to the Xbox for years now. Even fans of the brand consider XboxBR management to be terrible (and it really is). I even believe that here in Brazil the PS4 itself still sells more than the Xbox Series S.
 
Last edited:

Batiman

Banned
Physical games have been such an inconvenience for me since quick resume. I switched to mostly digital about halfway through last gen
 

marquimvfs

Member
Brazil is predominantly Xbox territory. Despite kaizenkko's claim, Xbox actually outsells both Playstation and Nintendo there. Gamepass is a huge reason for that, and likely a major reason for this move if true.
Because of gamepass, sure it is growing, but it isn't enough to catch Playstation yet. Winning? That doesn't happen since middle X360 generation.
 

Maverick074

Banned
Microsoft's been trying to do this stuff since they pulled the "no preowned games on Xbox One" thing at E3

It'll come back once like 75% of Xbox users use the console for Game Pass and nothing else
 

BeardGawd

Banned
Hmmm pretty surprising to be honest for the simple fact one of their consoles has a disc drive.

Plus I doubt this makes retailers happy.

But hey maybe they're anticipating a predomiantly Series S console base in the future? Plus the Cloud factoring in as well.
 

Pimpbaa

Member
Microsoft's been trying to do this stuff since they pulled the "no preowned games on Xbox One" thing at E3

It'll come back once like 75% of Xbox users use the console for Game Pass and nothing else

I use my series x for game pass and nothing else due to the ridiculous price of storage expansion cards.
 

Shubh_C63

Member
My understanding was that average wages are very very low in Brazil. I would have assumed the lack of cracks/piracy on the new consoles would have made physical discs >80% of the market and the only viable way most Brazilian's could afford to play Xbox (due to the abililty to resell, trade, or buy used), but if MS's has determined this makes business sense, apparently the internet has embellished and misled me on the "poverty" of the aggregate Brazilian population.
That's what scares me for economy like India also. Both I guess are very price sensitive market with about as equal purchasing power for high value goods, while India is nowhere near console game consumption as Brazil except in Mobile.
If this can happen to Brazil they can pull the plug on countries like India anytime.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
LOL. Some of you have some really outdated visions about the video games market in Brazil. GamePass is a huge success in Brazil, that’s all this news is about.
Huge enough for Microsoft to stop selling physical games. Unlike the USA, internet data caps is not a thing in Brazil so people are totally ok to download/redownload games all the time.

People here really must not have any idea about the video games market in Brazil. They have an outdated vision, as you so rightly said.

Please share how many Gamepass subscribers are in Brazil (the number). That'll show them.
 
Top Bottom