No Longer a GAME

MUMBAI, INDIA: Even as you keep your fingers busy playing your favorite games - God of War 2, Heavenly Sword, Motorstorm and many more on your Sony Playstation console, it is even more exciting to catch up with the brains behind those enthusing endeavors.

From the days of videogames, the gaming industry has come very far. Prasad Ramasubramanian of CyberMedia News caught up with Atindriya Bose, country manager, Sony Computer Entertainment to know about Sony Playstation’s plans for 2008 and more.

From being a game to de-stress oneself, gaming has become a big game. How do you view this scenario?

Internationally, gaming has long been accepted as a very viable mode of entertainment across various age groups. India is currently showing similar signs of a very high level of acceptance of the gaming culture. From being looked upon with certain amount of doubt, gaming has thus come a long way towards becoming a mainstream entertainment. It has cut through the cultural barrier and becoming more and more acceptable across the consumer segments. From casual games on the mobile / Internet to serious games on the console, Indian audience is now participating across the range. It is no longer being an exclusive, sit-alone fun but has taken a more inclusive nature where friends / family can enjoy them together. De-stressing is only part of the benefit that can be ascribed to games – it goes much beyond that towards a complete recipe of fun. With the advent of social gaming, people are now using gaming consoles towards creating impromptu singing competition / quizzing contests: things that can be done in groups as unadulterated fun.

While the West is all gung-ho about this experience, how has the response been in India?

While it has gone pre-dominantly unnoticed, India has also been slowly participating in the gaming culture that swept the world. The same had been happening through the grey channel in an unorganized way. This is why many of the console manufacturers are making their official presence felt only recently, there is already an established console base of around half million in the country, led by the PlayStation 2 (PS2) consoles. This makes it easier to find acceptance as well as create quality marketing programs across the official channel as the knowledge of the products, games titles and benefits are not in question. Each of the product launches have been well accepted in the Indian market – be it the hardware launches like PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable (PSP) or the games titles. Even at nascent stages of the market, Indian consumers are definitely showing a high level of acceptability towards the Next-Gen consoles like PS3 or the PSP. Needless to say, the price sensitivity of the Indian consumers is an important parameter to keep in mind. The price perception is created by other international markets and grey channel. If the official channel can offer a price point within a certain limit, the Indian consumers are likely to move to the official channel for purchase of the hardware and software.

In terms of market, India is still a heavily priced dominated market, how do you plan to approach this?

While comparing the price structure of the Indian market against international price points, we have to keep in mind the high import tax structure of around 35 per cent that the product attracts. This in addition to the VAT of 12.5 per cent means almost 45 per cent in taxes for the products. While the tax rationalization by the government will help the console base to grow and thereby the gaming industry as a whole, many of the games software have already being replicated by Sony in India to be able to hit the requisite games software price points.

How are Sony's consoles -- the PS2, PS3 and PSP doing in the Indian sub-continent?

With the recent price corrections and enhanced marketing and trade channel activities, there had been a huge upward swing across all the PlayStation formats. The same is reflective both in the hardware as well as the software sales. While there has been almost a six times growth in the console sales numbers post the price correction, the software numbers have grown almost 10 times. With the next generation consoles and games having a good growth, the growth numbers are even more attractive in terms of value terms. India being a focus market for the PlayStation products, the numbers definitely justify the faith put in the market potential for the country.

For the distribution, you have roped in Milestone interactive, why was this done and how has it turned out for Sony?

Milestone Interactive has long been associated with gaming in India and had been the official distributor for PlayStation products in India. It is a long-standing association and has been win-win for both.

Would Sony come out with PS3 starter packs Starter packs in the country?

It is critical to establish the correct price points for the various products in India. Once that is achieved, the various advanced marketing techniques will be used to focus on the market. This may or may not include introduction of starter packs for PS3. We recently created bundles for PSP with gaming software (Spiderman & Simpsons). Both the variant had a very good acceptance in Indian audience. Such spikes in demand obviously provide us the confidence of coming up with innovative offers in the same line.

The price of PS3 has been reduced by Sony, has it won you a few more followers in India?

The recent price corrections on the PlayStation 3 format have given an immediate impact on the sales numbers. The winter season sales have been pretty encouraging with a good rise in the consumer off takes. Many of the shops have moved into a stock out situation. We operate on a thin inventory and the products are getting imported to replenish the stocks.

With the 40 GB PS3 getting launched in our country, why the need not to have a backward compatibility in this edition? Do you think this was a good idea?

The backward compatibility idea is well researched and well thought through. PlayStation 3 is a next generation console and the games on the platform enjoy a high level of complexity and graphics quality for high definition content. Currently, the range of games already launched or about to be launched on the platform is wide enough for someone to have a collection and not depend on earlier generation games for any genre.

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