If you didn’t know, India, for the past few years, has had a fast expanding gaming market. Last year, over $30 million was generated in the 7th-largest country in the world. Today, industry experts are predicting that India will expand its gaming market to over $700 million during the next five years.
The expanded earnings is partly attributed to the continual expansion of the current generation of consoles in the country. The Xbox 360 launched in India back in September 2006 and Sony launched its PS3 back in April. While Nintendo hasn’t launched the Wii yet, it’s "unofficially" being sold in the country.
So far, the reception has been warm and Mohit Anand, Microsoft’s India country manager, had nothing but good things to say to the support.
"The response to the Xbox has been phenomenal… absolutely demand has exceeded our expectations and plans. I have more than 1,000 retail touch points across the top seven cities. We are everywhere… any retail outlet."
Tanisha Kaul, product head at Sony India, shared similar warm comments about the reception of the PS3 in India. She mentioned that India’s economy was growing at the time of the PS3 launch; therefore people were inclined to purchase it for entertainment needs.
Pricing of games will be key to the gaming industry’s growth in India. The exchange rate of dollar to rupee is immense ($1 = 40.26 rupee). So a normally priced Xbox 360 game which would retail for $60 in the U.S. will retail for 3,000 rupees in India, which puts it to around $74. But prices of games are being reduced, due to homegrown games.
Rajesh Jain, industry expert, said, "The main drivers for the growth of the gaming industry in India would be seeding initiatives by the players, marketing, and pricing of the games – which is an important aspect in India. Some of the PlayStation 2 games have already been brought down. That helps to grow the market."
