| binary solo said: What's the India console market like? You could probably extrapolate from that a bit. The Chinese middle class is probably more affluent and growing larger than India's. But on the flip side, India has no one child policy, so the Indian middle class may have a comparable number of kids and teens who are the entry-level market for consoles. Still even if the Chinese market is double that of India, given India is counted in Rest of World on VGC for sales it would seem India is not all that big of a market. In fact none of the highly populous developing countries are substantial console markets. At the moment rest of world is ~1/3 of the Europe market for PS4, about 1/2 the size of the Europe market for XB one and just over 1/4 the size of the Europe market for Wii U. The RoW market combined excluding china has a population base much larger than China. So best best best case scenario is China adding an extra 50% sales of the current RoW sales. And I doubt it will be close to that. Sales not to be sneezed at, but also not market transforming either. I suspect PC gaming will be the mainstay of gaming for some time yet, since digital downloading of games is not a closed (and hence easily censorable) eco-system like it is with PSN, XBL and the Nintendo one. |
I can tell you about the situation in India as I live here.
The PS4 and XB1 are incredibly expensive, with both having launched at $670 (XB1 Kinect being $750) but gradually, price of PS4 has come down to $650 (lol) and XB1 is now available for $500 for kinect-less version (its launch price in US with kinect). Hell even PS3 500GB and Xbox 360 250GB are still $350 right now in the country and Wii and Wii U weren't officially launched in the country. As you can expect at such prices console gaming isn't very mainstream but its a popular hobby among the rich as well as upper middle class and gaining mainstream attention. Its becoming more popular among teenagers and adults, but almosty completely lacks kids in the market, which maybe why Nintendo hasn't officially launched hardware here.
PC gaming though is flourishing and incredibly mainstream. The key is in the pricing. PS4 and XB1 games are priced at $67 launch. Wii and Wii U games are only avaiable through NTSC (don' know what that means) and are also roughly the same price. SSBB is still $60 in India. PC games are usually priced at $30 for Ubisoft games, $40 for Take-Two games and $50 for EA games, EA having the most expensive games for PC. It aso helps that people already have PC's and for gaming only require a few ugrades which cost much less than PS4 and even PS3. PC gamers here aren't about having the most powerful rigs but just to be able to run modern games at decent settings.
GTA and Assassin's Creed are very popular IP's, and sports games and racing games are also very popular in India. God Of War has a huge fanbase in India too, probably the biggest exclusive IP in the country. Uncharted and Halo are also popular but not as much.
In terms of sales its pretty easy to guess that in lifetime sales
PS3 > 360 >>> PS4 >> XB1 >>>>> Wii >> Wii U
In terms of sales for software this gen on consoles so far using online retail best-selling games (which is pretty accurate since a large portion of sales for games are through online retailers)
GTA V >> FIFA 15 > COD: AW > WWE 2K15 > Other open-world games > COD: Ghosts > Don Bradman Cricket 14 > Other games
Infamous: Second Son >> TLOU: R > Bloodborne > Halo: MCC > GOW III R >> Forza Horizon 2 >> Driveclub >> The Order: 1886 > Knack > Sunset Overdrive > Forza Motorsport 5
Wii U exclusives barely have their presence felt but Pokemon games on 3DS sell extremely well despite being $67.
