Thanks to piracy, buy Xbox at Rs 32000

new delhi: after last week’s typically glitzy launch, microsoft’s xbox video game consoles are only available in one asian market—japan. but that isn’t stopping indian gaming enthusiasts from laying their hands on a console. smuggled versions are already marking their presence in delhi’s underground palika bazar. the consoles comes with a hefty price tag, at a substantial premium over the per unit cost in japan.in the indian grey market, the xbox is available at a price range of between rs 32,000-35,000, albeit with a free cd. microsoft has priced its xbox at around $260 (rs 13,000) in japan. xbox game titles (originals) also come at a hefty price of rs 5,000 each. titles like ‘dead or alive 3’, ‘silent hill 2’, ‘project gotham: world street racer,’ and ‘tenku freestyle snowboarding’ are on sale with the xbox. microsoft india, however, has no plans to launch the xbox in the immediate future. "launching the console in india today does not make much business sense," says rajiv kaul, md of microsoft india. microsoft’s revenue model is based more on generating revenues from the game titles rather than on the console. "with the level of piracy prevalent here, it is impossible to generate enough revenues to make business sense," feels kaul. however, the steep price is hardly a deterrent for game enthusiasts. says a retailer at palika bazaar, "we’ve already sold a few xbox consoles." says an official of stracon india which distributes sega’s dreamcast console in india, "the hardware is not our concern number one, what worries us more is the availability of cheap pirated versions of our game titles." rival sony’s smuggled playstation2 is available for rs 22,000. pirated titles can be available for as little as rs 100-200. sony’s playstationone (psone) console in india is available legally at an introductory price of rs 7,990. sega’s dreamcast console is also available at around rs 12,500. a recent ac neilsen study had predicted that the gaming console market in india would grow to a size of rs 500 crore in the next three years.