14 DAY TRIAL // At the moment, the big hardware and software creators active on the videogames market are focusing their efforts in territories like North America, Europe and Japan, trying to sell as many consoles and games as possible to those who have a culture of playing videogames for more than 20 years.
But, demographically speaking, the biggest markets for this segment of the entertainment industry are territories like China, India, and Brazil, where currently access to the Wii, the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3 is limited, and most videogames are either pirated or used.
Sony is trying to change all that, with a focus on the Indian market, and it's using some pretty interesting tactics.
In March, the company released a PlayStation 2 videogame called Hanuman: Boy Warrior, based on Indian mythology, that can be played in both Hindi and in English. The game managed to move more than 10,000 units during the release day, which is way more than the usual 3 to 4,000 expected for a new launch.
Initially, the boss of Sony Computer Entertainment India, Atindriya Bose, thought that Haruman: Boy Warrior would sell around 30,000 units, but taking into consideration the strong sales, the projection has been raised to 50,000. One of the most attractive elements of Haruman is that it only costs 499 Indian rupees, which is the equivalent of 10 dollars.
Sony has plans to expand the number of videogames developed specifically for the Indian market. Candela Software (Bangalore) is creating two titles that will be used by students preparing for exams, while Gameshastra (Hyderabad) is working on four other titles based on “Indian rural tradition, like ‘gili danda’ [and] ‘kabbadi’, among others.”
With the gaming market for consoles in India estimated to reach about 125 million in 2012, we might soon see the release of Grand Theft Auto: Mumbai.