A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft announced its plans for the Xbox One launch in India. The company’s latest console will be exclusive to Amazon in the country. It seemed odd given that e-commerce exclusivity here is usually reserved for smartphones, not gaming hardware. I spoke to Anshu Mor, head of Xbox India, to figure out the method to what most see as madness.
(See: You can now pre-order your Xbox One in India, but through Amazon only)
The audience is online
Though gaming has been around in this country for a long time, it’s not exactly been mainstream, aside from a select few such as FIFA, Angry Birds and Temple Run. Awareness of console gaming is not widespread, and this is something Mor knows. According to him, core gamers know what to buy, where to buy it, and what to do. But, he believes, there’s a large audience that’s not not been addressed yet:
We know our audience is natively digital. They’re already talking, buying online, not opposed to placing orders online. They make all their decisions online. They might walk into a store and buy something but if it was online they’d be just as happy. They’re more digital than anyone else.
To him, it is only logical to target these digital natives who, he says, “buy other consumer electronic goods and not games because they don’t know what gaming can do for them.”
Microsoft loves Amazon’s data
Amazon has taken some flak from consumers since managing to get Destiny as an exclusive. But Mor believes that the e-commerce giant is the right fit. For him, this is one retail partner that understands the nuances of gaming:
The first and foremost thing was the meeting of minds in what we wanted to do. This is not smartphone exclusivity. This category is very different. We felt that they understood the needs of the category and what we wanted to do. They had a very clear consumer mindset in experiences that needed to be driven and thats top priority for them and for us given that we’re bring in a premium device like the Xbox One into the country.
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