Jan 11, 2015

Nintendo will no longer officially sell its hardware products in Brazil, the company has announced.

“In response to ongoing developments in the Brazilian market, Nintendo of America Inc. today announced changes to the physical distribution of its products in that country,” Nintendo said in a statement. “Starting in January 2015, Gaming do Brasil, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Juegos de Video Latinoamérica, GmbH, will no longer distribute Nintendo products in Brazil.”

Gaming do Brasil has distributed Nintendo products in the country for the past four years. While it will no longer sell Nintendo products in Brazil, parent company Juegos de Video Latinoamérica will continue to be Nintendo’s distributor for Latin America.

Nintendo said that Brazil remains an important market, but that challenges in the local business environment made its distribution mode unsustainable. “These challenges include high import duties that apply to our sector and our decision not to have a local manufacturing operation,” Nintendo said “We will continue to monitor the evolution of the business environment and evaluate how best to serve our Brazilian fans in the future.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean Brazilians can’t play Nintendo games, they’ll just have to buy the Wii U or 3DS from private importers or import hardware themselves, probably at a higher cost. It’s still an unfortunate development for them, however, as consoles in Brazil are much more expensive than they are in North America as it is.