On Saturday September 23rd the wishes of many Indian gamers came true as they witnessed the introduction of next generation gaming to their country. The launch of the Xbox 360 in India makes it a grand total of 31 countries where the console is now available. With Bollywood icon Akshay Kumar and Indian cricket superstar Yuvraj Singh involved at the launch event, nothing short of a media frenzy ensued.

With a launch line up of 25 titles and an estimated 7-10 titles to be added monthly, one forthcoming title in particular will immediately appeal to the majority population in India; Yuvraj Singh International Cricket 2007 from Codemasters. Microsoft Country Manager Mohit Anand helped increase the Xbox 360’s appeal by stating “The gaming community in the Indian market is expected to grow rapidly in the coming few years. Xbox will definitely act as a catalyst to fuel this growth and expose Indian gamers to next generation gaming experiences.”

Xbox365.com have also had some interesting notes sent in by anonymous reader, he mentions:

• Peter Moore is in India and taking potshots at Sony (when asked why the PS3 has not been announced by Sony for India he replied “because they forgot games are fun and are meant for everyone.”).
• Xbox 360 ads are all over radio and massive amounts of discussions/promotions are there.
• The Xbox 360, with a tie up with Maxim India and Microsoft in conjunction with them, had been building hype for the launch for around 2 months now.
• Maxim India has held decent parties in popular night clubs sponsored by the Xbox 360.
• The media has gone “nucking futs” over the launch and the tech people are happy that finally India has had a proper game console launch.
• The launch took place hours ago at a place called ‘Ansal Plaza’, one of the good hangout spots in Delhi. It’s a huge mall with an amphitheatre. One of the country’s top DJ’s, DJ Aqeel is playing at the event.
• Kiosks were set up at almost all posh markets in Delhi with HDTV’s and generally people were impressed by the console’s graphical abilities.
• Peter Moore is playing Project Gotham 3 & Rockstar Presents Table Tennis with journalists and explaining the new features of the console.
• The launch is well managed and the Xbox 360 has gained reputation.
• Project Gotham Racing 3 and Perfect Dark Zero are being given a MAJOR push.

Gamerscoreblog.com report that 2,000 members of the media, business partners and consumers were present, and the whole thing was broadcast live on MTV India. With Microsoft aiming to sell 10 million Xbox 360’s worldwide before the year’s end, this new territory is sure to help them reach that goal.

A literal translation of Namaste is “reverential salutation to you”. Hence, here at Xboxic we salute and welcome all the Indian gamers to the Xbox world!