Sony has its seeds deeply rooted in nearly every corner of the planet thanks to its celebrated PlayStation platform that has seen a major evolution since the concept of console gaming first arrived. And although India is a country where gaming is primarily attributed to a high configuration PC, it seems like consoles have slowly made their ways into the daily life of an average Indian gamer. Now, Sony feels something similar can be achieved with the upcoming release of the PS4 in the country.
Atindriya Bose, Indian Country Manager at Sony Computer Entertainment, was recently in an interview with Gamingbolt where he spoke about the console’s chances of making it big in India, while discussing other console-related information like the upcoming launch event for the console, Gaikai and more.
On asked whether Sony is feeling confident about the console’s launch in India with its main competitor Microsoft’s Xbox One not arriving until late next year, Bose stated: “What makes me more comfortable is that we are being deemed technically superior.”
“That is something that is being corroborated worldwide in terms of the following, sales, the speed we are generating and the type of experience that we are even seeing in India. Their [Xbox One's] delay in terms of launch is something that they have to decide. In India I have always frankly held that more the merrier. India is still in a market building phase, so more competitors, more publishers is much better.”
Next, on being asked whether PS4 games are going to be replicated locally, Bose confirmed that as far as title replication for the PS3 is concerned, “that is already being handled by Sony DADC. So all first party games are being handled by them, expect for the special packs which gets bundled outside of India.”
“At what point of time we will look into the PS4 games will obviously open up for technical discussions and business models. So neither ruling it out nor saying that it will happen immediately. In terms of local replication for the PS3, we have done our stuff for the first party games, we will also create a third party business model and parallely we will keep on evaluating the PlayStation 4 games replication,” he added.
Lastly, when asked about the Gaikai streaming service and if the Indian market has a potential for that, Bose stated: “As of now the full plan for Gaikai for the PlayStation 4 and how it holds out is not yet known, market wise. One of the things that holds back Indian market is the local internet infrastructure.”
“It’s not just about Gaikai but also the PSN downloads as well. So due to bandwidth and other restrictions people don’t download but the speed at which the infrastructure is changing so there is a huge opportunity for internet services that we are going to look at. If that happens then the advantages that are being promised by Gaikai, it has the potential anywhere in the world not just in India,” he further added.
Sony’s PlayStation 4, already available in North America and Europe, is set for an Indian release on December 18.
