Ubisoft snatches up Brazilian studio Southlogic

I've said it once and I'll say it again: god I love that picture.

As a Beeing living in Brazil AND in São Paulo, i can say this is REALLY, REALLY great news for our industry that is so small the only things we have here are imported games for the price of 230+ Reais, that's the equivalent of 98 Dollars... Just for the record mirror's edge is 299 reais, that's about 126 and some Cents in Dollars...

What do you guys think about it?

Currently i'm a Game Design student in a 4 Year Graduation Course here... the plan is going to Canada, Vancouver Film School of thx :D

BR?

Best picture of the week, hands down.

Perhaps Ubisoft Brazil will work on making games for the Zeebo gaming system...Just a thought

Snatch and Brazilian in the same sentence? Ludwig, you sly boots.

OMG, that Brazil movie melted my mind. Twice.

I find amazing how the industry is getting a lot of support in Latin America.

We have a Developing Studio in Mexico and we found a great deal of support from a lot of places. YABT, MASHAV, TIC Americas, Global TIC, Nat'l and Int'l Universities and many others have supported the industry in my home town, even with federal funding.

It is rapidly growing.

I suppose I'll eventually have to actually see that movie.

I interviewed Bertrand Chaverot (I'm the editor-inc-chief of MSN Games Brazil and Preview Editor of EGM Brazil), the big boss of the brazilian studio. He said that development isn't on their plans...yet. However, with Zeebo on the road and Microsoft planning (and delaying) to bring Xbox Live to our "Tupiniquim" land, I think there's hope at the end of this tunnel.
As pointed by Ashkental, a game title here is reeeeally overpriced, making us rely on import, which doesn't really save that much money, but it's a start. The minimal wage here is somewhere around R$ 480,00 (that's "quatrocentos e oitenta reais"), which would be...err...US$ 203,80 when transforming things in dollar.

But as I said, I think that is an about-to-change reality: not only with Microsoft and UbiSoft, but Activision opened a studio here in the past few days too. I was there, talking to John Dillulo about it. And, the most remarkable thing: Sony came to Brazil - they will start producing PlayStation 2 here. That could sound lame, but know this: PS3 is in the "For Riches and Bitches" category, being too expensive to be massively bought. PS2 still is king here, so Sony made a good move bringing a last-gen console to our lands. This could be a start to something better in the near future.