Surprising as it is, selling Playstation 3's in Argentina is "illegal". After seeing overpriced PS3's at $1700-$2000 in some ads, Fernando Cassia decided the contact Sony to see if they were imported US units. Federico Augspach, Sony Argentina's marketing manager said that Sony is in fact, not importing console, but instead, selling PS3's in Argentina is illegal. Nonetheless, the ads and a few websites show that they are selling the PS3.

After seeing full-page ads in the local papers for the PS3 - totally overpriced as usual at two thousand greenbacks, - yes you read that right, around $1700 and $2000 packaged with an extra controller and a game. I decided to ask Sony if those units advertised in the paper were US units imported by Sony's Argentina branch or if perhaps those were Euroland PAL units somehow converted to the local PAL/N flavour/oddity.

Augspach said that Sony is not importing the PS3 console into the country, and that selling it in the country is "illegal". He said that in order to sell the console, the Japanese giant must certify it for compliance with the local RF spectrum regulations, that is, the frequencies watchdog agency, or FCC wannabe, the CNC. He said a couple of weeks ago that the firm had not initiated the certification for the device's Bluetooth capability at the time, and that "until that certification" and approval -also known as rubber stamp- ;) does not exist, that it's not legal to sell games console.

Synergized via theinquirer.net »