Putin Wants Russia to Make Its Own Game Consoles

Morrissey Technology – Russian President Vladimir Putin wants his country to be able to create its own gaming console. Not only game consoles, Putin also wants Russia to be able to create a Steam-style gaming ecosystem. This plan was revealed after Putin chaired a socio-economic development meeting in Kaliningrad, Russia. After the meeting, Putin approved nine-point instructions to be executed, and appointed Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to lead the initiative.

The directive specifically mandates the development of desktop and portable hardware, operating systems, and cloud systems for gaming. Mishustin was given until June 15 2024 to draw up an outline of the game ecosystem development plan.

“Consider the issue of organizing the production of stationary and portable game consoles, as well as the creation of operating systems and cloud systems to deliver games and programs to users,” wrote the contents of the instructions, as quoted from Tom’s Hardware.

Putin’s order was issued when all giant game and console manufacturers such as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo stopped officially selling their products in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine. Even so, a number of local Russian vendors are still finding ways to import game consoles from abroad.

Russian media Kommersant reports that Putin will likely entrust the gaming ecosystem project to domestic technology company VK. But a number of important figures in the Russian gaming industry say developing a gaming ecosystem from scratch will require a lot of time and funds.

“In Russia, no one has the expertise that allows them to produce consoles on the level of PlayStation or Xbox,” Fplus Head FOR4D of Retail Projects Anton Fomin told Kommersant.

An unnamed expert said Russia would need about 5-10 years and 5-10 billion rubles to create the gaming ecosystem Putin wants. Once that happens, the technology is predicted to be 15 years behind when compared to mature platforms like Steam.

This is not the first time Russia has had to develop its own gaming industry from scratch. During the Cold War era, engineers in the Soviet Union developed many arcade machines and amateur games, including the legendary Tetris game FOR4D.