In conversation with Atindriya Bose, Country Manager, Sony Computer Entertainment.
With the launch of God of War: Ascension, we had the opportunity to speak with Atindriya Bose, Country Manager, Sony Computer Entertainment. We got some insight from him about the game as well as the future of the PS3 and the much-anticipated PS4.
1. One of the biggest Sony exclusives, God of War: Ascension, launched in March. How has the response been with gamers in India?
The excitement around the game God of War: Ascension had been quite a nice build-up. It has actually brought a lot of buzz in the console category (along with the discussions around declarations on PS4). Given the increasing PS3 installed base estimate in India, the game was benchmarked at almost twice the earlier quantity of the franchise. With complete trade marketing focus and all around sales support, it’s been a very satisfying launch experience. The coordinated launch experience online as well a midnight launches have been successful. The post launch speed is also meaningful. With the summer holidays around the corner, the sales of the God of War: Ascension has been the largest till date in India from the SCEE stable.
2. What are the big PS3 exclusives we can expect to see launching in India in the coming months?
On an immediate basis, we are building towards the following efforts on the PS3 software:
– Launch of the next version of Move Street Cricket II (Tracking end April-13 as of now)
– Roll out of an wave of Essential titles at a price point of INR 999 (based on local replication that is about to start off)
– Targeting April-13
– The Last of Us (Jun-13)
– Beyond
There will be a lot of other titles also as exclusive on the PS3 which are yet to be declared.
3. Are there any India-based studios developing games for the PS3? In the past we have seen games like Hanuman launch on the PS2 but the game was highly criticised for its lacklustre graphics and poor gameplay. Will we ever see high quality games for the PS3 come from an Indian development studio?
There have been two PS3 games developed in India which have been released and also a few games from Indian developers for the PSN. The Move Street Cricket has done well as expected and the 2nd version is about to be launched in April – May period. This provides us the confidence that the Indian developers are capable of creating games on the PS3. With investment in time and resources, they can make even higher quality of games for the platform. However, the business perspective of Indian IPs focused on Indian market will create constraint based on a lower rate of adoption of such Indian IPs on the console players.
4. Any plans for a tie-up with content providers in India such as BigFlix so as to stream movies and other media content on the PS3?
We are evaluating the areas of variety of media consumption as PS3 can easily become the central driver for such media. But in terms of any local tie-ups, it is too early to make any comments on the same.
5. The PS4 has just been announced and is expected to be unveiled at E3 2013. How many months after the US/UK official launch will the console be made available in India?
Scheduling for the launch for PS4 for all local markets are still under evaluation and to be finalised.
Atindriya Bose, Country Manager, Sony Computer Entertainment