Sony to manufacture PS3 games in India

First party PS3 games will soon be manufactured in India, Sony has confirmed.

Speaking with MCV, Sony Computer Entertainment India country manager Atindriya Bose said, Technically, we’re ready to roll out PS3 games from India, but we’re currently working on the tax implications so that we can be clear on costing models for first and third party games.”

India-made PS3 games will roll out over the next few months, and Bose hinted that October release Sports Champions 2 could be one of the first games to ship out of the Sony DADC plant in Navi Mumbai.

We were initially planning to start with this fiscal year, but we were held back due to these legalities. We’ll probably have a test run of one title, because we don’t want to jeopardise the supply conditions during Diwali.”

While Indian manufacturing will remove the possibility of release delays on account of shipping and customs clearance issues, there won’t be much of a drop in game prices, at least for new AAA releases, which currently retail for anywhere between Rs 2,499 and Rs 2,799.

I don’t see too much of a drop in the prices of top-end titles, but at the catalogue level, we would definitely like to see a more India-oriented price. For Platinum titles, breaking the Rs 1,000 barrier would be the first target, but for new AAA releases, we’ll probably stick with Rs 2,499 for now."

PS3 games are currently imported from Europe as is, without any localisation, and Bose said that Sony isn’t looking to localise games for India anytime soon.

We will have the basic ‘Replicated in India’ and ‘For sale in India only’ text in the relevant places, but language and content localisation is not something we’re interested in right now.”

In the long run, we could look at how we can localise for two reasons – as a marketing benefit, and as a means to deter people from exporting these games. However, we haven’t seen too many instances of India-manufactured PS2 games being sent outside."

Besides first party, Sony is also in talks with various third-party publishers to have them manufacture their games in India.

We are at various levels of discussion with third-party publishers, especially those who are already replicating their PS2 games in India, but there’s nothing concrete that I can confirm,” Bose said.

Besides Sony, EA, Capcom, Warner Bros, Sega and Namco Bandai currently manufacture PS2 games in India.

Bose spoke about the upcoming games in an exclusive interview with MCV India, which you can read here.

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