Russia has a long history with video games. We owe him the video game monument Tetrisbut also more recent successes like Escape from Tarkov. According to information fromInsiderGaming which is based on an article from the Russian newspaper KommersantVladimir Putin would have requested the creation of game consoles with their own ecosystem.
Russian consoles and ecosystem
According to the media, the current Russian president would like to finance his “own home consoles and laptops”. Sources close to the government explain that this is a desire to circumvent sanctions and bans on the importation of foreign consoles. The Kremlin would give itself until June 15 to examine the possibility of producing entirely Russian machines.
PC Gaming states that this request would have taken place during a recent economic summit to assess demand and establish a timeline. It is said that such a project could take Russia ten years since it is starting from scratch and lacks Russian experts in the field. As for the cost, it would be between 5 to 10 billion rubles.
The VK company would be responsible for one of the game consoles while GS Group would take care of its manufacturing as a subcontractor. In addition to hardware and software, we are talking about a machine dedicated to cloud gaming. Two separate gaming devices are therefore being prepared in Russia.
Russia has a large player base
Video games have a big place in Russia since there are several professional players of Counter-Strike. In addition to Tetriswe owe him major global successes like Atomic Heart on Xbox Game Pass, among the most recent.
As reported The diplomatic worldthe Russian video game market was worth around $3.4 billion in 2021. The war in Ukraine, however, caused a gradual withdrawal of studios in this territory with 69% of players having played a pirated game in 2022. Russia is therefore seeking to take advantage of this enormous user base to fill the coffers with local offerings.