People will buy the hardware which has a modchip available, but the overall Russian console market is just too small to make any impact even on European sales numbers.

 2 Kzin:

I'm pretty sure that PAL consoles are sold in Russia. Most people have multisystem TVs capable of doing at least PAL/SECAM (and often NTSC).

  2 bdbdbd:

 Russia won't be an indicator at all because of the reasons you mentioned. With an average salary of $400/month people cannot spend $250 or $600 for a console, and $50 for games. Another reason is that console games sold in Russia are in English. Most of Russians don't know foreign languages. One of the reasons that cheap PC games sell well is that they are localized. This puts these games out of competition with the English versions, thus making possible the price of $10 for a legal copy. 

Yep, Sony launched PlayStation3 in Russia. Pal region. 630 euro. 630 euro ?!?!

Too bad that Russia means Moscow and St.Petersburg only. Well, Moscow only.  I suppose >50% of stocked PS3s were sold at the first day, but the actual number of consoles avaiable were tiny. I think <= 500 consoles were sold overall at 20.04.

Playstation2 and PSP are the best selling systems here right now.  And i see more and more people buying licensed games for ps2 and psp. Sony is providing strong anti-piracy campaign and you cant just go anywere and buy a dvd-r for 5 bucks. Also many people are getting attracted by Sony because of reasonable prices. 20$ for a platinum ps2 game, 77$ for a PS3 game (~57euro). For example Microsoft's Gears of War costs more then 100$ at the same time. Are you willing to pay 100$ for a game ? Game that even not localized. Sony and Nintendo now are starting to do something with it in Russia.

Ive visited rarther big electronics shop today and saw 2 new ps3 demounits, one playable, other with trailers of lair, heavenly sword, f1, resistance and so on.

Few kids were playing motorstorm and resistance, but noone were willing to buy a system for about 30 minutes i spent there. X360 demounit met me with korean dashboard. After changing to english i realised that surfing dashboard was the only avaiable option, nothing more.

Well, im still being optimistic, situation is becoming better. I mentioned that at the moment Russian console market = mostly 2 cities, but c'mon. Do you ever know how many people live in Moscow ?

11 million. I would say 1 million potential gamers. Only in one city. Gogo Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft.

2 amiiam:

 630 Euro? That's well over 800 bucks! That's a lot even for rich Moscow kids.

Is Sony having an anti-piracy campaign in Russia? That's interesting. Could you tell more? OMON at Gorbushka crushing the sellers of pirated Sony games?

Anyway, most people in big cities have high speed internet access, so availability of pirated DVDs with games is no longer an indicator of piracy. One can easily download a game and burn it on DVD-R and play it provided he has a modded console. 

Mosow and st petersburg... then there is the rest lol.

dedoslav: yes, it would be a good indicator, because of the reasons you said. Those who can afford Wii, can afford the PS3 and those who can't afford PS3 can't afford Wii either. So the diffence in price will not matter so much, than it matters everywhere else. But in the other hand, in Russia you rather buy the more expensive product just to show you can afford it. Hus: by population Moscow and St.Petersburg aren't small marketing areas. When combined, they are 16-18M by population. They are two welthiest cities in Russia. But there are pretty much poor people in both of them. But from St.Petersburg, peole visit Finland pretty often for shopping, so you propably can get Wii/360/PS3 cheaper from Finland, when shopping Tax-free.

YES!!!!!! HA HA to anyone, that hates PS3, now it will dominate It is being released in Sicily!!!!! YEs easily 6 million sold!!!! Come on everyone why would Russia buy Sony PS3? Bottom linePS3 HAS LAUNCHED 360 has launched Wii has launched Guess who is in the lead(-2 years for 360) Ding ding ding ding Yes you guessed it the Wii!!!!

i have it )) PS3 very nice, but many good games not relese yet...

where i may see official information(sales) about Russian launch? consoles and games.