Playstation versus Xbox versus Wii U versus PC
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Calm down folks, I'm not starting a war. Over the years, I've come across two categories of gamers (barring mobile games, obviously), Playstation console gamers and PC gamers. The rest are in the fringe(no don't sugarcoat them as niche). Sony dominates the Indian console gamer marketscape and I want to know why. Microsoft comes a distant second while Nintendo is nowhere in this race. We Indians feel left out by constant denial of Nintendo (btw, did you guys checkout Nintendo Switch?). When you Google Nintendo Switch India, you get a disappointing article that says just wait indefinitely and eBay ads selling imported US pieces at twice the price without any local warranty(that means, if something breaks, reship it to country of origin for a replacement). Sony on the other hand has an extensive distribution channel with good last mile marketing and adoption(jargons for effect).
Sony is a revered brand in India
As I grew up, Sony was always associated with affluence, quality and reliability. Coolest kids in school walked around with a Sony Walkman. In the early days, globetrotters would carry Sony products from Singapore & other SE Asian countries to India with a select few in India's sparse middleclass having access to it. This made Sony products a sign for having made it in this world, an aspirational brand every Thambi, Dixit and Harish on the street knows. In a price-conscious, loyalty-agnostic market, Sony is one of the few names that command loyalty. That has trickled from Sony handheld radios to walkmans to TVs to DVD Players to mobile phones and finally, Playstations. Despite a niche console gaming market, Sony easily captured a big chunk with little effort. Maybe that's why they priced Playstation 4 soo high at launch. Despite occasionally making blunders, Indian audience has been quite forgiving owing to nostalgia.
India is one of the nine countries around the world where Microsoft has a research and development centre and it is one the last countries that Microsoft launched Xbox One (and most expensive amongst these nine locations). Despite having an R&D centre, the fact that Microsoft neglects this market is outrageous. Microsoft is even headed by an Indian man (that's got nothing to do with it ofcourse), but a little love to this one-console nation would do good for everybody. Microsoft launched Xbox One 15 months after USA and 9 months after Playtstation 4 launch in India. And you wonder why India still remains a Playstation market. As much as I'd wish to talk more about Xbox in India, there isn't much. Microsoft launched India ops as a Global Tech Support Centre before expanding their R&D centres in Hyderabad and Bangalore, where teams build the latest operating systems, software suites and Xbox. Microsoft, you crazy company, you!
Hello darkness my old friend - Indian Nintendo fan.
Nintendo has always done things differently and Switch is the latest tribute to this philosophy. Choosing to go with cartridges and rejecting the digital wave is gutsy, but then again, people don't mind going out of the way for Nintendo. I'm not complaining since this will allow secondary markets (like Hanchu) to survive and thrive. Nintendo hasn't been comfortable with digital games as much as Microsoft pushes it. Anyway, that's besides the point. After leaving the Indian market in the 80s, Nintendo has never looked back. Few stores around the country sell international Wii and 3DS systems, but that's never going to scale. Ofcourse, the Indian gamer is missing out on the Nintendo experience. Maybe, they are gunning for a cult following like Sony achieved a few decades ago. Nintendo, that might work, but you still need to be in the market and not be ridiculously expensive. Let's try that for once.
Glorious PC is making a come back. Hardware is cheap, Internet is fast and torrents are rampant. Ahoy the second wave of PC gaming! The winner of PS vs Xbox vs Nintendo vs PC is PC. Far more Indians are on PCs playing games than on any other medium (except smartphones). Indians are comfortable with torrents, Steam and Indie games, willing to pay for good games and more willing to seed expensive ones. Arrogant consoles have been disappointing since the seventh generation, with unfair pricing on studios and virtually blocking off Indie game companies. Left without a choice, devs turned to PC and produced kickass MMORPG games, amongst others leaving capitalist console pigs behind. Over the last decade or so, consoles democratized gaming; it was a simple inexpensive machine many people could afford, without worrying about configurations and play many games quickly and easily. On the other hand, PCs were clumsy with their RAMs, HDDs and mHz making them obsolete every six months and an expensive affair. The roles have reversed today with high maintenance consoles and easy-to-rig-up PCs and hence the shift to PCs. Today's gaming rigs are masterpieces and consoles just can't compete with that.
I was a Sony fan boy till recently, having a Sony walkman, Sony cassette player, Sony VCR ('member?), Sony TV, Sony Ericsson mobile and a Sony PS3. Sony still has it's way with Indian console gamers, but PC games are far ahead of the pack. Microsoft doesn't seem to care about this market and finally, Nintendo, Y U No Come To India?
Source: https://hanchu.co/blogs/musings-of-a-gamer/playstation-versus-xbox-versus-wii-u-versus-pc