In what parts of the world is it hardest to get new games/systems?

[Rick Dangerous]

As far as I know, people in the US/Canada, Europe, Japan/Korea, and Commonwealth Countries have no problems getting the latest systems and releases.

 

What if you live in Russia, or Mexico, or taking that even further Cuba, Haiti or Somalia?

 

Is there a large grey area where many are years behind? I wonder if systems like the PS2 are considered pretty "new" in many corners of the world, or it would not be unusual to see a 16 bit system in someones home and no one would think of it as retro.

 

Anyone ever spend any time thinking about this besides me? haha. Can anyone living around the world report on the ease (or lack of) by which you procure games/systems?

[Flojomojo]

Antarctica? The distribution channel sucks down there.

 

There are large swaths of the world where the economics of a modern day console are out of reach of most people. Mobile phones are the "home computer" for a lot of people in the developing world. Someone posted this "am I rich" thing here a while back, and it's stuck with me because it's so powerful. I don't think many Americans truly grasp poverty in the world.

 

In China, they had a ban on game consoles, which is why the clone machines and mobile games are as big as they are.

 

Go to Brazil and the 8 and 16 bit Sega systems are still a big thing, and always have been, because of peculiarities of licensing, tariffs, and manufacturing.

 

PC gaming is more likely to take hold in the wider world than console systems. It's not an accident that we have a Nintendo of America or Sony Computer Entertainment America. It takes a management infrastructure for licensing, distribution, and localization. Don't expect to be able to buy a 3DS game in most electronics stores in India or most of the continent of Africa.

 

There are South Korean MMOs that you've never heard of that make more money than most AAA games from Western Europe, North America, and Japan.

 

It's a big world out there.

[Shawn]

In Cuba it's not so hard to get consoles but it is hard to get games.

[Osgeld]

I imagine the parts where things like food and clean water are rare you won't see too many huts rocking the new CoD and Madden

 

What kind of question is that?

Edited July 28, 2018 by Osgeld

[Rick Dangerous]

You never know.

 

I wonder if they realize how hip their CRTs are...

[82-T/A]

Midway Island.

 

A small re-supply plane comes around once every 6 months. There's only 10 people on the island... 1 cook, and 9 "keepers" that try to help restore the island. All they have is old WW2 crap, and whatever Reagan put there back in the 1980s. They have a golf cart. I hear there's a game boy somewhere on the Island. .. that's about it.

[Video]

I'd imagine anywhere it is hard to get food or water would be a good bet.

 

Actually, just because something is mainstream and a country is first world doesn't mean readily available. In the US, mastersystem wasn't really a thing, though I hear it was big in Europe. Many of my favorite games are imports due to them being rare, or unavailable here.

[+Sauron]

I live in Eastern Europe (more specifically Ukraine), which is a relatively poor country. Game consoles, while not impossible to acquire, are not commonly sold in most large retail chains. However, they are still possible to get. The biggest problem with them is that they are priced way out of the range of most people here, with a PS4 often being the equivalent or more of one month's salary. Likewise, the games are also priced way out of reach, which means that the few people who do have consoles often resort to piracy. PC gaming is much, much larger here, especially with games that don't require the latest graphics cards to run well. Most PCs that are sold here don't even come with an OS installed, so the vast majority of PC users are of course using a pirated copy of Windows, or some Linux distribution. Two of the most popular games here are DOTA 2 and World of Tanks, with the latter often used as a benchmark on whether a PC will run games well or not.