The worst countries in the world to be a gamer

Who has it worst for... console release dates?


You know what’s also really important if you want to be a gamer? Having a machine to play games on. Otherwise you have to resort to making little cardboard cutouts of Mario and jumping them over your furniture like a slightly mad child, or making your friends dress up as Covenant so that you can shoot them with a painball gun, and that’s basically just bullying. So yeah, if you want to be a console gamer at least, you’re going to need a console.

The thing is, while console launches these days tend to be big showboating parties where men in shiny suits spend way too much money on running around being all “Look at me look at me look at me OH PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LOOK AT ME, HAVE I NOT DONE ENOUGH YET MOTHER DO YOU NOT LOVE ME YET HAVE I NOT DONE ENOUGH!?”, there are some countries to whom these events are just the distant rumble of a gnat fart on the horizon.

You see for some countries, console launches come and go, and it’s only years later that the companies in question remember that said countries exist and that they should probably bung them a few units. You know, like when you forget about the hooker in your car boot until you notice the smell weeks later. Or so I’m told.

Anyway, these are the countries that got dicked out of consoles for a long time this generation, illustrated in nice, brightly coloured graphs to counterbalance the sadness:

So yeah, the main conclusion I think we can all take from that is "Don't be from the Far East or South America if you're a Sony or Nintendo fan". Also, "Microsoft will screw roughly one country from each significantly-populated continent that isn't North America, just for a laugh".

David Houghton
Long-time GR+ writer Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.