Sony Computer Entertainment America officially confirms it will enter the bastion of the Americas which its gaming competitors are already tackling, Latin America, for the purpose of tapping into the region's potentially lucrative market. To be sure, Sony Corp. itself has a presence in Latin America, and SCEA will be teaming up with Sony Latin America to get the bulk of its PlayStation business up and running across 13 of the region's countries.  In addition to officially launching the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2 consoles in Latin America, SCEA hopes to localize the PlayStation Network as well.

Through a distribution partnership with Sony Latin America, PlayStation services are now available in select countries throughout the Latin America region. This includes access to PlayStation Network, a free entertainment network service that delivers original content, future-proofing system software updates, and online services that foster community among its worldwide audience.

In the coming weeks, PlayStation.com, the official PlayStation website, will introduce a localized Web site providing the most current PlayStation news and information relevant to users in select countries in Latin America. Features of the site include access to the PlayStation Blog, detailed product pages with PS3, PlayStation 2, PSP and PlayStation Network content, public forums to engage with the PlayStation community.

As Latin America essentially includes the portions of the Americas south of the U.S. border (technically where the Spanish or Portuguese languages are dominant), SCEA is indeed weighing the scales of this literally large new market. SCEA's vice president of sales Ian Jackson previously mused at BMO Capital Markets Interactive Entertainment Conference last November that Latin America's market could well be potentially more lucrative than Canada's as a result. That said, the divide between the rich and poor across Latin America remains very wide, so pricing of console hardware should be a paramount consideration for SCEA.