The Hindu Business Line : Not just all play

Mohit Anand, Country Manager - Entertainment and Devices Division Microsoft India and John Wendl, Content Developer, Forza Motorsport - 2 at the launch of `Forza Motorsport 2' for X-Box 360 in New Delhi.

Preethi J.

Movies, music, gaming! That’s what Microsoft expects the mantra of Indian kids to be this year. Its flagship gaming machine, the Xbox 360, has wooed gamers worldwide with its high-definition playback, realistic gameplay and competitive pricing of Rs 19,500. Its nearest competitor, Sony’s Playstation 3, retails for a whopping Rs 50,000 but also packs a punch in graphics. There are over 250 games available on the Xbox and over 11.6 million people who own one.

With its latest Live service, Microsoft hopes to entice the rest of the world by offering a smorgasbord of arcade games, bundled with non-gaming downloads and even education-related content online. Announcing that Live would be launched in India by the end of this calendar year, Mohit Anand, Country Manager - Entertainment and Devices Division, Microsoft, says it will continue to tie up with Indian entertainment content providers and game developers to localise the Xbox 360 for India. The Xbox 360 is no longer just a gaming pod. It’s where you will log into chat with friends, leave voice messages, download movie trailers and play music. Microsoft’s strategy to make the console more than just a gaming pod is expected to draw new PC users into gaming. With Live, this plan will be realised. Live is an online game playing service which will use a broadband connection to connect the console to the Internet and let them play alongside millions of others. A 128 kbps connection will be sufficient to plug into the Live service, revealed Anand. By end of June 2008, there will be 10 million online gamers on Live.

Live will offer nearly 190 trials and demos that can be downloaded for free. There have been 220 million downloads of gaming and entertainment content from the service to date, the company reports. Xbox Live is integrated with Windows Live, which means that anyone with a Hotmail account can chat (instant message) with friends over Live, using the same username. Microsoft also unveiled a chatpad accessory - a QWERTY keypad that attaches to the wireless controller, replacing the virtual keyboard. Over 2.4 million instant messages, text and voice messages are sent over Xbox Live service every day, according to the company’s statistics.

Your game-obsessed kid can even learn a fun and interactive lesson in Maths thanks to two Indian firms - Educomp and Lakshya Digital - that have designed the lessons for the console. Indian games such as Yuvraj Singh International Cricket 2007 have been launched exclusively for Xbox. Microsoft also holds Xbox-only gaming competitions.

A gamer can buy a desktop designed specifically for gaming or a console like the PS3 or Xbox 360, he can play online MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games, which only requires a web browser and an Internet connection) and even walk into a cybercafe to join his pals on a LAN (local area network, where a bunch of computers are rigged up) game.

Does Microsoft feel insecure with the multitude of competitors? "No. Anybody who games anywhere builds the community. Right now we are in a market-making task," he says. “The current gaming market in the country is just $100 million, compared to the worldwide $3-billion one. There is a lot of headroom. Which platform they game on is not important. Cybercafes are youth hangouts where gaming is becoming the rage. But there will also be a section which will want to play from the comfort of their homes. We designed the Xbox for people to game from their couches.” The company is excited about India. “Our pre-order Halo 3 special edition campaign sold out earlier than expected here. We will continue to sell hard in India,” says Anand. Offering a unique EMI option, Microsoft has played the ‘easy financing’ card enticing more gamers and parents to buy the consoles and pay for it in monthly instalments. Live will bring the clans of PC (desktop) gamers and console gamers onto a common platform.

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