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Sankar Radhakrishnan

CHENNAI, Jan. 30

COMPUTER entertainment company, Milestone Interactive Software Ltd, is all set to unveil an advertising campaign for the PlayStation software in India. The company, which is the Indian software partner for the recently-launched Sony PlayStation, will release the campaign in the next few weeks.

Mr Jayant Sharma, Chairman & CEO, Milestone Interactive Software Ltd, told Business Line that he expected the campaign to be running by the middle of next month. The campaign would initially be built around promos and contests associated with particular PlayStation games, in addition to ads in the print media, he added. "The communication for PlayStation, which is being developed by TBWA, is targeted at youngsters in the 18-21 year age group and is based on an aspirational platform," he said.

Mr Sharma said that the company was also looking at bringing existing PlayStation owners together through Net-based promotions. "In fact, a lot of our adspend on the electronic media will be focused on the Internet," he added.

The company is also believed to be in the process of tying up with a prominent TV channel to launch action-based game packs under its `Wow that's what I call' series. While confirming that Milestone Interactive was in discussions about launching co-branded game packs, Mr Sharma declined to reveal further details at present.

In the meanwhile, Mr Sharma confirmed that Milestone Interactive was working on the development of a computer game. He said that the company's in-house development team was working on a game targeted at the international market. The game would be ready by early next year, he declared, and added that the company was looking at creating some more in-house product development teams.

In response to a query on the branded gaming centres the company had planned to launch last year, Mr Sharma replied that the project was on hold for the present. He said that the venture, which was to be launched in association with a cyber cafe chain, had run into several hitches and had not taken off. However, the company has not ruled out the option of reviving this venture at a later date, he added.

The company has introduced several new value game packs in the last few months, he said. "The new releases come at prices as low as Rs 299," he added. The company is looking at promos built around specific games to support the new products.

Commenting on the reaction to the PlayStation, Mr Sharma said that the initial response had been quite positive. He said that the interest in the PlayStation software, which is available in 11 cities across the country, was mainly from existing owners. The company has already introduced 26 popular PlayStation games in the Rs 499 to Rs 1,499 price range and would launch 12 to 15 new titles every month, he added.

Milestone Interactive, which had a turnover of Rs 3 crore in 2000-01 and is looking at a growth rate of 33 per cent in the current fiscal, is part of the Milestone group, which includes Milestone Entertainment and Indigaana.com. It is the Indian representative of international computer games companies such as Infogrames, Novalogic and Eidos Interactive, and has a presence in over 30 Indian cities.

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