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.

To all the nay-sayers who think there ain’t no way the gaming situation here can ever improve on our home turf, well, you may be right! But one thing’s for sure, it can only continue growing and that’s largely thanks to the efforts of companies like Microsoft and Sony. According to Rajesh Jain (Executive Director of KPMG), “The main drivers for the growth of the gaming industry in India would be seeding initiatives by the players, marketing, and pricing of the games – which is an important aspect in India.” Currently India’s gaming industry is worth about $30 million right now, and that’s even including the grey market.

Jain further adds, “At the end of the day, the prices at which the games are brought is important” but also mentions that it’s not the “cost of the box” which matters, but the “cost of recurring games.” We already know Microsoft has been doing a heck of a lot of work to drive their message (with booze, no less); and thanks to the 54% decrease of the import duty imposed on game titles, you can expect to find products quite comparable or even a bit cheaper than what you would you normally find in other countries (although currently, this mostly applies to those published by Microsoft Games Studio). Even for games that haven’t even been released yet, Microsoft will sell them for approximately Rs. 1,895. Same goes for recently released PC games: you’ll find S.T.A.L.K.E.R and BioShock for less than Rs. 700. Quite the admission price!

Source: MetroNow (Click below to read what other companies had to say)

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Rarely do I ever see an Indian mainstream newspaper talk about older video games, let alone games of the beat-em-ups genre. Seriously, what are the odds? Also, the heading is a tad misleading as there is not of a single mention of any arcade titles – but that can be forgiven right? From today’s HT City, Nikhil Singh’s list does get several nods for citing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist, The Adventures of Batman and Robin, Contra, and Streets of Rage. Never really played Battletoads & Double Dragon, but where’s Final Fight? I’m sure Mayor Haggar would express weighty apprehension over this manner, which would later result in him ripping his shirt off and cleaning house. Guess that means no turkey-leg power-up for you!

Which reminds me! Hardcore Gaming 101 has an excellent section on all the Capcom Beat-em-ups known to mankind. You best go read, mmhmm.