Sony Computers to develop localised forms of games

Durgesh Gupta - Televisionpoint.com | Mumbai
Sony Computers, the gaming division of Sony Corporation, plans to develop three types of games specially targeting the Indian audience. The company has already begun working on developing a game around Indian mythological character Hanuman. Aurona Technologies, a Pyramid Saimira Group company, is already working on their first Indian game Hanuman.

"This will be for our PS3 console. Besides games surrounding mythological characters, we will also be developing quizzing and rural Indian games like kabbadi, gulli danda, kite flying, kho kho and others. All these games will be developed over the next few years." said Atindriya Bose, country manager, PlayStation, Sony Computer Entertainment, during the Indian launch of PlayStation 3 and PSP 3000.

Pricing will be critical, since the company is targeting rural India to market its products, and will stick to Rs 499 per game strategy. "What we do in such case is, we will not add many layers and levels in a game," he said.

Sony division manages the gaming console businesses of Sony Corporation. The company manufactures three main varieties of gaming consoles - PlayStation Portable (PSP), PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 and also manufactures games on Blue-ray.

On growth of PlayStation business in India, Bose said in the last one year, they have grown seven times in their console business and 10 times in the software sales. Sony sells games on Blueray, each game could cost in the range of Rs 499 to 3,000 in the Indian market.

While there has been speculation about Sony starting a studio in India to develop games, Bose brushed it aside. "What we do now is encourage some studios here to develop games for us, like Aurona is developing Hanuman for us. We are also working with a few studios such as Gameshastra and DQ. In fact Gameshastra has already begun developing Pallavi on rural Indian games."

Prakash Ahuja, CEO, Gameshastra, said, "A typical Indian gamer is a city-bred youth who has no idea about traditional Indian games. These games have an inherent Indian rustic appeal to them, which will be appreciated by Indian gamers. We are confident that the old world charm of these games would appeal not only to people in India but also to the Indian Diasporas world wide."

India with one of the biggest untapped gaming market in the world, with less than one per cent penetration, holds a huge potential with industry bodies estimating that it would reach $ 425 million by 2010. Earlier, the Indian gaming industry was facing some challenges like import duties were as high as 31.7 per cent; the fluctuation of the dollar rate had also hindered stabilisation of prices.

But, there had been a lot of rationalisation of prices of gaming consoles recently. The PlayStation 2 and portable PlayStation which were in the range of Rs 11,000 to Rs 18,000 had dropped to Rs 6,000 to Rs 9,000 while the PlayStation 3 had seen a drop in prices from Rs 40,000 to Rs 25,000.