Russia has ambitious plans to create its own video game industry, including the production of Russian gaming consoles.
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Russia, also known for the launch of the cult game Tetris, and at a recent socio-economic meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed his government to consider this initiative, local media write.
In the decree, the government is specifically invited to explore the possibilities of development of both stationary and of portable game consoles, along with an accompanying operating system and a cloud system for distributing games to users.
Putin’s initiative came after the decision of all the world‘s major video game manufacturers, including Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, to suspend official sales of their products to Russia due to the military intervention in Ukraine. Although local vendors still manage to import foreign video game consoles through some channels, the Kremlin seems to see an opportunity to develop the domestic video game industry due to harsh economic sanctions and tensions with the West.
Putin has set a deadline of June 15 for the analysis of this ambitious plan, and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will oversee its implementation. However, it is clear that this will be a challenging undertaking. “Kommersant” reports that Putin probably trusted the Russian technology company VKontakte to implement the plan, but points out that there are concerns in the industry that Russia does not have experience in producing its own versions of PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and that building such a system from scratch will require a significant amount of time, perhaps up to 10 years.
It is not enough to just produce a console with advanced chips, especially if you take into account the restrictions regarding the export of such technologies from the US. It is also necessary to build a strong system of software developers. Kommersant further suggests that a more realistic option would be for Russia to source hardware from China and thus create a portable variant of the console similar to the Steam Deck console developed by Valve Corporation.
(BENCHMARK.RS)