I think their current goal is to make a -----ton of money, to be honest. Whatever they want to "penetrate" after that, is up to them. But they're not in the business of giving out hugs in return for games here. Lets not kid ourselves... they (and we should) want this game to profitable because then we get more. It's simple economics. No self-respecting business owner is going to sell a game below market values just to 'get it in homes' - unless you've got a terrible product.
Whether you like it or not, the Western territories of the world are going to decide whether this game is a success or not. Sub-Cont market will be icing on the cake, especially if the game is awesome it'll sell like hot-cakes at a lower-price point AFTER they've made their profit in the Australian/Brittish markets. That's just basic economics. It's how most media works these days. It's made in the US, breaks even (or does really well) and the international sales are where you make your profit. Television, Cinema... Business models are all the same. Make your profit after you've made your money back - hence why targeting a BIG specific series (like Ashes) in a western market is key. It's all about timing, as Ross has said over and over and over again.
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As you can see, 1499 is the most preferred price for top games.
Nope, that's for games that have been on the market for a while. All the new release ones there are priced 1800 and above - unless PES 2012 is a "new" game over there? You're also talking about HUGE developers there, like Ubisoft, EA and Bethesda - BigAnt just doesn't have the resources those companies do. I live pretty close-by to India in a developing area. You won't see new release games here for less than $60+ bucks, they then drop down to about 30 - 40ish after they've been on the shelf for a while. That's basically what you're looking at. They'll retail it higher for the first few weeks, then prolly drop it down later to your rs1500 mark that you're targeting...
Again, I'm just spitballing here. If the game is going to be released in India I'm pretty sure the marketing/budget folk at BigAnt have done the numbers on all that and perhaps they can meet a reduced price-point but it won't be a "day one" release at a cheaper price than the rest of the world.
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...do game prices differ from country to country? If its that way, they could sell it cheaply in the subcontinent to generate some reputation & recover the losses from say UK & Australia. I don't know how it works anyway, just asking.
Yup, prices for everything vary all over the world. Lots of things at play; Higher taxes, GST, import costs and much more - so often the price variances aren't
anything to do with the developers at all. Basically, they set an "X Amount" for return on investment to make a profit, then the retailer adds on their amount and then the government gets their GST (if it applies) and then you get your final price-point. But the developer has a number in mind based on their investment and costs that they pass on to to consumer. "Staggered Release" usually happens with markets where the game is cheaper, because of the internet, retailers generally don't want their customers heading off-shore and missing out on their payday*. So markets where the game is 'cheaper' generally get delayed product - it's part of the reason why discs still have "regions" attached to them and why often developers like Ubisoft will "delay" the PC version to maximise proft of PS3 and XBOX sales in key markets - leaving the PC gamers hostage until it's released a few months later. That's a pretty [read: very] basic rundown of how these things work, pretty sure there's some economics specialists floating around who can explain it much better than me, but that's the general 'layman' jist.
*Rugby World Cup in New Zealand comes to mind where NZ folks could purchase the All Blacks replica shirt online for HALF the price you would pay in retail in NZ. Adidas actually asked the website to take down sales for NZ customers to maximize their profit. Pretty disgusting and the government stepped in - but that's an example of how the online vs. retail thing can get a bit dodgy.
. All I was trying to say was that since their current goal is market penetration (remember...a genius once posted on this thread "first game is always a loss....it's the second that you make a profit on") they might use the strategy of keeping the price low 'if their research concluded that this could be an option for higher market penetration'. Whatever price they do keep would obviously be based on their market research and would thus be fair.
How are the games going? Ross never tells us anything 
