i was thinking in the shower (where i do all my great thinking) and wondered, what if china and india became gaming countries?  combined, the countries account for nearly half of the world's entire population.  imagine how much bigger the gaming industry would be.  imagine how many more game developers there would be.  imagine how much bigger online communities would be.  the only downside is that they are both still developing countries so it probably wont be for a while...

EDIT:  when i say gaming countries, i mean modern gaming.  i do not mean pirated gaming or previous gen gaming.

isnt there a ban on gaming consoles in china?

There is a huge gaming community in China.  The only problem with it is, they goto local businesses to rent computers by the hour to play games (basically an internet cafe).  Most people in China couldn't afford to purchase a PS3 and would only be able to get a 360 if they saved for a long long time.  Once the Chinese get a larger middle class I expect gaming console sales will skyrocket.  

India IS a gaming country.. basically in the hands of the PS2 which is cheap enough that maybe 1-2% of the population can afford to buy one. Interestingly, sales for the PS3 picked up significantly when this "hackdongle" appeared in the news (global numbers speaking, sales went from "utterly completely irrelevant" to "completely irrelevant"). Now with this "PS3 encryption key exploit" out, sales could even skyrocket to "almost completely irrelevant"....

what why?

They would get all of their ideas in the shower.

The middle class of both of those countries is still a fraction of that of a developed country such as the US, for example. I know that pretty much every well-off male in India plays PC (though mostly pirated games, mind you, :P), but that part of the population won't be big enough to do much till 2020 at the earliest.

i dont know why lol, i would assume that the chinese government doesnt want their citizens playing a bunch of video games.

Well china is a communist country so if they did get into the gaming industry the government of china would be in control of it. There would only be one developer being the government.

As for India they are a 3rd world country and i dont think they are economically powerful enough to develop games. Also i don't think they have the tools and resources to make games.

As for all the other things you said though i agree. Online community's would be way bigger and funnier. And the console's would have a much much bigger install base.

I can see South Asia really buying into Japanese products (nintendo and sony), since those nations really value Japanese products the most while I was there. Sony is a huge brand in South Asia already. Assuming India follows the path of the four tigers, we might see video game industry in the late 20s, early 30s. 

Addition: The problem will be, like couple of the four tigers....India might become an MMO nation.