Loading ...
Archive for the ‘Indian Gaming’ Category
Before you start shedding tears of joy, let us tell you that the game has reached India but is, as of now, stuck at the Mumbai customs. Our friends over at Gaming Indians have been in constant touch with the people concerned, both at Take2 and e-Xpress Interactive and the news doing the rounds right now is that the game has finally made it to the Indian shores. Considering the general apathy of the customs as far as the Indian gaming community is concerned, it can take anywhere between 7-10 working days before the games clear customs and are ready to hit the shelves across the country.
Looks like Sony’s partnership with Pyramid Saimira and Aurona Technologies was only just the beginning. Turns out, Sony’s got themselves hooked up with a total of 13 Indian-based development studios… And they’re all going to produce exclusive and budget-priced titles for the Playstation 2, aimed for both the local and international market. Some of which might even have Eye Toy support!
According to Zeno Colaco, vice president (publisher and developer relations), ‘PS2 users will get the best out of their machines with games based on our motion-sensing technology.’
Globally, Sony is expected to launch 150 titles for PS2 alone. The 2008 FICCI report on Indian Media and Entertainment Industry reveals that the local gaming industry garnered Rs 270 crore (Rs 2.7 billion) at the end of 2007 - up 32 per cent from Rs 205 crore (Rs 2.05 billion) in 2006.
With an already estimated userbase of 325,000 units in India (and still growing), Sony’s initiative becomes a bit more clearer. What remains to be seen is if these locally-developed games can rise to the call and meet with international expectations. Doubt it! But hot dog, now I’m curious to see what companies like Indiagames have in store for us. Sitar Hero, anyone? Bring it on.
Thanks to Sam Turismo 5: Prologue for the heads-up. He knows how to get my hood poppin’, if you know what I mean.
(Source: Business Standard)
I heard it from a colleague at the office… “there is gaming competition at Rajpura”. I didn’t pay any attention. There couldn’t be anything big in this part of the world. They only play CS. But my colleague, knowing about my connection with gaming from my regular rants about TAP, was intent on showing me the website. Is this really big enough that it has its own website? I saw the site here and it looked good. Damn they have big sponsors, and I knew… this is big. And so began… the rush to cover the event.
FXLabs is busy with Dhoom 2.5 and Ghajini, while Trine Studios’ got Streets of Mumbai. So where, oh where, will we be seeing an Indian developed game based on Indian mythology, quality not withstanding (at this point, sucking is only half the problem)? Pyramid Saimira and Aurona Technologies (in collaboration with Sony Entertainment) are up for the task, and they’ll be summoning the Monkey God himself, Lord Hanuman. According to AnimationXpress’ Money Sharma:
Pyramid Saimira with its gaming arm Aurona, will develop game on Lord Hanuman, titled as ‘Hanuman’. Currently in the development stage, the game will portray some part of epic Ramayana and is slated for late 2008 release. The action adventure game is a role playing game and is being worked at Aurona’s Hyderabad studio with close to 60 artists working on it.
… Aurona Technologies Business Development Director Hetal Bhuva shared, ‘Our objective behind having collaboration with Sony is to explore the Indian gaming market and Indian content. The Hanuman game will be targeted at kids of age group of 6 – 16 worldwide, who are familiar with the Indian culture and mythology and can easily relate to it.’
Shucks, would’ve been nice to see Aurona take the source material and go all blitzkrieg like David Jaffe and co. with God of You-Know-What. Although their site doesn’t specifically mention what projects they’ve worked on, Aurona did have a hand in the development with Colin McRae DiRT and… uh, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties? Well, it still beats the pants off Agni. I guess.
(The picture inserted above was taken from here)
BossFight’s Anand Ramachandran’s got himself a new weekly column for the Zeitgeist, “the Saturday paper from the all-new, zippily redesigned New Indian Express.”
Editor-in-chief Aditya Sinha has done gamers a huge favour by taking a leap of faith and devoting a full page every Saturday to gaming, the first newspaper in India to do so. It’s a spanking new redesign, and has tons of great content (no, I’m not returning a favour or anything. I honestly believe that Zeitgeist, and the new Express, are a breath of fresh air for newspaper readers in the city. Try it for yourself.). Go out and get one this Saturday, and you’ll see what I mean.
You can view his first column here. Reports of pirated DanceMela copies have been left unfound. Yes, I know they’re supposed to be free.
You can set your pitchforks down now, because Grand Theft Auto IV will be coming to India on the 29th of this month, just like the rest of the world - courtesy of e-Xpress Interactive. Joyous rapture! Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions will retail for Rs. 2499 and Rs. 2999 respectively. But if you decide to pre-order from GamingIndians, you’ll be earning yourself a 10% discount with free delivery. Sam has all the details posted here. In the meantime, check this fan-made video out and let the good times roll.
(Source: Tech2.com India)
Salutations, to all you folk. Say, did you know we recently turned a year old? No, no - not ourselves. Although having a bunch a young, thumb-socking misfits writing an Indian Gaming blog would suffice for more of a relevant plot device than anything the Super Babies movies were ever about. And god, you have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to take a crack at the Super Babies. Imagine if your feces sprouted it’s own civilizations and… wait, where am I going with this?
Anyway, theANGRYpixel blog is now one year old (and then some). How did we get this far?