The studio is likely to come up in Bangalore. The company is talking to a couple of game developers in India and aims to set up the studio early next year.
MUMBAI: Sony Online Entertainment LLC plans to set up a development studio in India for online games that would have local content and a local partner, a company official said on Wednesday.
The studio is likely to come up in Bangalore. The company is talking to a couple of game developers in India and aims to set up the studio early next year, said David Christensen, vice president, business development and international operations.
“We need to have Indian content for our games and we are looking for local partners,” Christensen said on the sidelines of a gaming conference in Mumbai.
“We will contribute our technology to the joint venture,” he said.
Christensen added: “We will be depending on our partner for financial assistance, local market understanding as well as management assistance while we could get our technology expertise here.”
Though Christensen said no partner has been finalised yet, the studio will come up by the first quarter of 2008 and work on at least one massive multi-player online game targeted at the Indian markets would begin thereafter.
Online gaming is just catching on in India. There are only about 2.8 million online gamers in the country, but developers expect the market to explode as broadband penetration grows over the next few years.
With more than 50% of India’s population under the age of 25, analyst firm Pearl Research estimates the online games market to reach $200 million by 2010 from $4 million now.
Gaming in India is roughly split between Internet cafes and home computers. Among the video game consoles, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has the edge. Sony’s PlayStation 3 was launched in April in India, but PlayStation 2 is more popular than the new console.
Sony recently tied up with Virgin Comics to develop a multiplayer online game based on “Ramayan 3329” — a comic book written by self help guru Deepak Chopra and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur that was inspired by a famous Indian epic about a battle against demons.
“If the game is successful in India, we will take it to Europe and North America,” said Christensen. “It is a fresh international story and if it is created into a movie it could be a big global property.”
The Ramayan comic was released in the United States last year, and Bangalore based Virgin is currently in talks on a movie version.
Virgin’s president Suresh Seetharamanin said the company was in the process of adding to the creative team that would work on the game with
Sony. “It is one of the most exciting things to happen in India with Sony being one of the biggest players in the online game world,” he said.
Tanvi Shukla of DNA contributed to this story
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