Microsoft thinks it can sell more Xbox Ones by going exclusive with Amazon India

In the second part of our interview with Xbox India head Anshu Mor, he sounds off on how Microsoft manages its retail partners, why the Xbox One is poised for success, and of course, Sony.

(See: Here’s why you can only buy the Xbox One on Amazon in India)

Retailers rage

Seeing Xbox 360 games at retail will be a thing of the past. Xbox One games won’t be present either thanks to console exclusivity to Amazon.

In a country where credit and debit card penetration isn’t the greatest, and every e-commerce portal makes their revenues through cash-on-delivery transactions, it’s a big gamble to alienate the hordes of offline merchants that populate the country’s retail space. But Mor believes that this is not a problem:

Microsoft has a much larger partnership with offline retail. Xbox was just one part of it. And we had those discussions with our partners. We were very careful in making sure they understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. So the news was not really a surprise. It was disappointing for them not to be a part of this. A lot of them who we’ve spoken face to face are aware of the intent and what we intend to do. They understood what we were doing and they were supportive of the concept we had in place after understanding it.

If this is the right model or not is the crux of the debate. A lot of retailers are extremely irate with this state of affairs. The comments below are from a few I spoke to who asked to remain anonymous:

“Mor might believe that this is a step in the right direction, but our business was to grow by 20 to 25 percent on the back of the Xbox One launch alone. Thanks to this move, we’ll probably have to shut down some of our outlets before the year is up.”

“How can I import this to serve my customers? A lot of them still prefer buying in cash and in person. I’ll have to look at other arrangements.”

“We got the news a day prior to the announcement. We’ve asked Microsoft to please take their demo Xbox 360 units away, unless they’re willing to pay for their presence in our stores. They haven’t replied yet.”

“I guess we’ll have to support Sony. They win this generation by default.”

The ire is valid. Mor revealed that the Xbox One isn’t the only thing exclusive to Amazon. First-party games, accessories and even the the Xbox 360 (from next month) will be available from Amazon exclusively.

Some of retailers have even decided to take drastic measures, trying to invoke India’s laws on monopolies and restrictive trade practises also known as the MRTP act. I don’t think this approach is likely to work, given that smartphone companies have been doling out exclusives to e-railers here for awhile now. But I’ve contacted Microsoft and Amazon for comment on the matter; I have not yet received a reply.