M4R14NO94
03-13-2010, 09:46 PM
DISCLAIMER: I was actually gonna make a whole post of this on the Random thread, but I decided to make a thread for it. Please note that this is about actual, original, legitimate copies of games, NOT pirated, because for that non-official or non-legitimate stores have A LOT in Argentina. When the price is shown with a $ I'm talking about US dollars
Gaming here in Argentina can sometimes be either a good thing or a bad thing. Today (and the past weeks) I've been seeing plenty of good (and interesting) games in store shelves here in a couple of stores. About 2 weeks ago, in the same day Heavy Rain was officially released in this country, I actually saw that they had games like Dante's Inferno, Alien vs Predator and Bioshock 2 (regarding Bioshock 2, they even had the special edition), and before they had other awesome games like Demon's Souls, Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare 2 and others which I can't remember right now (and they still do have them). They also had plenty of PS2 games, some of them which were actually taken from two boxsets (Hitman 2 and Hitman: Blood Money and the first three Medal of Honor games for the system), but they DID have a boxset (Resident Evil: The Essentials), and they had some good stuff on DS (Polarium, Jagged Alliance, Space Invaders Extreme and, if you're an J-RPG nut, Dragon Quest IV and some Suikoden game) and PSP (Gran Turismo, EA Replay, LEGO Indiana Jones, Sega Rally Revo, SF Alpha 3 Max, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny and others).
Unfortunately, all good games are available only on the PS3 in this country, because as for the 360, they have either common games (Assassin's Creed II, Bioshock 2 and GTAIV, but they also have the PS3 versions), shitty games (Beijing 2008, NFS: Shift, PES 2010 and Avatar, which they also have the PSP version of it as well) or music games (Rock Band, Guitar Hero: Metallica, GH: Smash Hits, GH: Aerosmith, DJ Hero and The Beatles: Rock Band). It probably has to do with Sony being the one who officially brought it to Argentina (Nintendo has a distributor and Microsoft didn't even license it to anybody AFAIK), and probably because people here are more familiar with the PlayStation lineup (a lot of kids nowadays have PS1's or PS2's), and they don't want to risk bringing up more popular games for the system, because, who's gonna buy it? They probably think people here have PS3's instead of 360's (even though most people here own either a PS2 or a Wii), so they bring the good ones for Sony's platform, and the few 360 users here get common stuff, sports crap or licensed crap or straight up crap (even though they also have Street Fighter IV). Also, they bring only a few copies of games. While in the US, Europe and Japan you get about thousands of copies of games like Heavy Rain or God of War III, we get 5. Yes, 5, but it's justified: the pricing. The economy here is pretty bad, so they won't be risking themselves by bringing in 100 copies of a popular, brand new PS3, Wii or 360 game and sell it for a retail price between 400 and 500 Argentinian pesos (about $135-$170), because not a lot of people are gonna buy them, so they bring really few copies and sell it for a price like that.
Speaking of pricing, since one of the stores has both Sonic Rivals games, oddly enough the one being sold for a minor price is the second game. What's even weird is that the version of the first game that they have is, in fact, the Greatest Hits rerelease, which is supposed to cost less. The prices? 230 Argentinian pesos (about $75) for Rivals, 190 (about $60-63) for Rivals 2.
Another thing that sucks is that, with every Sony console, you ALWAYS get fucking PES 2010 as the pack-in. The fact that the game has Lionel Messi, one of Argentina's recent great footballers that plays in a really important European team (Barcelona, for those who don't know), is in the cover for the game, and that so many people say that FIFA sucks compared to this, and that the PES/Winning Eleven games are basically the ONLY thing every single person plays if they end up using a videogame console, doesn't mean that you have to have it as pack-in with EVERY system. How much did Konami pay you, exactly?
Thankfully, with the PSP you get the choice between this and Gran Turismo (and the new SOCOM as well, I think), and with the PS3, if you buy it with this game included, the price of the game is added, which is the same price of another big game, like Heavy Rain, GOW3, Borderlands, MW2, Resistance 2 or others (yes, POS PES 2010 on PS3 is being sold here for $150!), you can just buy the system by itself, with no game included, and buy one of those games for the same price you would have the system with PES included. As for the PS2, you have no choice. BUT, since the PS2 is basically dead right now, the games are cheap-cheap-cheap. Last month, Sony Style had a deal that had Ape Escape 3, The Getaway: Black Monday and Brave for about $70, and this month they have a deal with those three games plus Stolen for $50. They also have something I really didn't expect to see: Sonic Mega Collection Plus for $25, the Greatest Hits rerelease, and they also had Midway Arcade Treasures 3 and Crazy Frog Arcade Racer (POS) for about $15 each, and they had an Arc the Lad game for $10. So yeah, PS2 games here are pretty cheapo, except for newer ones like the Guitar Hero games, DJ Hero, SingStar Latino (yes, you read that right, SINGSTAR LATINO. Hopefully they don't release SingStar Reggaeton or SingStar Cumbia very soon, because that would be atrocious, even though there are Guitar Hero hacks that feature either one of those "music" "genres"), FIFA 10 and PES 2010
So those are my thoughts on gaming in my country. Feel free to make your own opinions about it
Gaming here in Argentina can sometimes be either a good thing or a bad thing. Today (and the past weeks) I've been seeing plenty of good (and interesting) games in store shelves here in a couple of stores. About 2 weeks ago, in the same day Heavy Rain was officially released in this country, I actually saw that they had games like Dante's Inferno, Alien vs Predator and Bioshock 2 (regarding Bioshock 2, they even had the special edition), and before they had other awesome games like Demon's Souls, Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare 2 and others which I can't remember right now (and they still do have them). They also had plenty of PS2 games, some of them which were actually taken from two boxsets (Hitman 2 and Hitman: Blood Money and the first three Medal of Honor games for the system), but they DID have a boxset (Resident Evil: The Essentials), and they had some good stuff on DS (Polarium, Jagged Alliance, Space Invaders Extreme and, if you're an J-RPG nut, Dragon Quest IV and some Suikoden game) and PSP (Gran Turismo, EA Replay, LEGO Indiana Jones, Sega Rally Revo, SF Alpha 3 Max, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny and others).
Unfortunately, all good games are available only on the PS3 in this country, because as for the 360, they have either common games (Assassin's Creed II, Bioshock 2 and GTAIV, but they also have the PS3 versions), shitty games (Beijing 2008, NFS: Shift, PES 2010 and Avatar, which they also have the PSP version of it as well) or music games (Rock Band, Guitar Hero: Metallica, GH: Smash Hits, GH: Aerosmith, DJ Hero and The Beatles: Rock Band). It probably has to do with Sony being the one who officially brought it to Argentina (Nintendo has a distributor and Microsoft didn't even license it to anybody AFAIK), and probably because people here are more familiar with the PlayStation lineup (a lot of kids nowadays have PS1's or PS2's), and they don't want to risk bringing up more popular games for the system, because, who's gonna buy it? They probably think people here have PS3's instead of 360's (even though most people here own either a PS2 or a Wii), so they bring the good ones for Sony's platform, and the few 360 users here get common stuff, sports crap or licensed crap or straight up crap (even though they also have Street Fighter IV). Also, they bring only a few copies of games. While in the US, Europe and Japan you get about thousands of copies of games like Heavy Rain or God of War III, we get 5. Yes, 5, but it's justified: the pricing. The economy here is pretty bad, so they won't be risking themselves by bringing in 100 copies of a popular, brand new PS3, Wii or 360 game and sell it for a retail price between 400 and 500 Argentinian pesos (about $135-$170), because not a lot of people are gonna buy them, so they bring really few copies and sell it for a price like that.
Speaking of pricing, since one of the stores has both Sonic Rivals games, oddly enough the one being sold for a minor price is the second game. What's even weird is that the version of the first game that they have is, in fact, the Greatest Hits rerelease, which is supposed to cost less. The prices? 230 Argentinian pesos (about $75) for Rivals, 190 (about $60-63) for Rivals 2.
Another thing that sucks is that, with every Sony console, you ALWAYS get fucking PES 2010 as the pack-in. The fact that the game has Lionel Messi, one of Argentina's recent great footballers that plays in a really important European team (Barcelona, for those who don't know), is in the cover for the game, and that so many people say that FIFA sucks compared to this, and that the PES/Winning Eleven games are basically the ONLY thing every single person plays if they end up using a videogame console, doesn't mean that you have to have it as pack-in with EVERY system. How much did Konami pay you, exactly?
Thankfully, with the PSP you get the choice between this and Gran Turismo (and the new SOCOM as well, I think), and with the PS3, if you buy it with this game included, the price of the game is added, which is the same price of another big game, like Heavy Rain, GOW3, Borderlands, MW2, Resistance 2 or others (yes, POS PES 2010 on PS3 is being sold here for $150!), you can just buy the system by itself, with no game included, and buy one of those games for the same price you would have the system with PES included. As for the PS2, you have no choice. BUT, since the PS2 is basically dead right now, the games are cheap-cheap-cheap. Last month, Sony Style had a deal that had Ape Escape 3, The Getaway: Black Monday and Brave for about $70, and this month they have a deal with those three games plus Stolen for $50. They also have something I really didn't expect to see: Sonic Mega Collection Plus for $25, the Greatest Hits rerelease, and they also had Midway Arcade Treasures 3 and Crazy Frog Arcade Racer (POS) for about $15 each, and they had an Arc the Lad game for $10. So yeah, PS2 games here are pretty cheapo, except for newer ones like the Guitar Hero games, DJ Hero, SingStar Latino (yes, you read that right, SINGSTAR LATINO. Hopefully they don't release SingStar Reggaeton or SingStar Cumbia very soon, because that would be atrocious, even though there are Guitar Hero hacks that feature either one of those "music" "genres"), FIFA 10 and PES 2010
So those are my thoughts on gaming in my country. Feel free to make your own opinions about it