Putin Orders Russian Tech Companies To Somehow Make Competitive Game Console In 3 Months
Back when Vladimir Putin launched his aggressive war on Ukraine, even before western government sanctions began rolling out, the video game industry started its own mini warfront on Russia. Companies began suspending sales in Russia entirely and otherwise disallowing Russian citizens to participate in global gaming culture. Groups like Itch.io began selling game bundles with proceeds going to groups that provide medical services to the people in Ukraine. And because of this and other sanctions, Russia voiced plans to essentially legalize copyright infringement on products from “unfriendly” countries.
Obviously when it comes to this war that has now spanned over two years, the gaming industry’s efforts are not exactly the most important aspect of the fight. Still, the whole point of a coordinated and multi-pronged response to all of this is to make life as uncomfortable as possible for the citizens of Russia in order to get them to pressure Putin to end the war. Or perhaps oust Putin entirely one way or another. And it sure seems like that pressure might be starting when it comes to gaming, as Putin has issued a hilarious edict to Russian tech companies to produce gaming consoles on par with PlayStation 5s and Xbox consoles by June. As in, June of this year.
Per a report from the Russian newspaper Kommersant, the order was handed down from the Kremlin to “consider the issue of organizing the production of stationary and portable game consoles and game consoles.” Kommersant’s sources tell the nationally distributed Russian paper that the VK Group, a major Russian tech company behind the similarly named social media service VK, will be largely responsible for the project. The production of consoles will be handled by the GS Group, which was previously known as General Satellite and is the single largest Russian developer of set-top boxes.
As part of the order from the Russian government on March 25, the VK and GS Groups will be responsible for producing both home and portable consoles for Russian consumers by June 15, 2024. The order has only grown taller. This move isn’t Russia’s first in the video game industry—the country tried to “penetrate” gaming communities last year, and considered creating its own game engine the year before that. But it does mark a remarkable shift since the majority of the games industry cut off relations with the country amidst its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia’s government is now trying to effectively kick off its own games industry, likely to offset the financial sting of those sanctions.
Now, look, Putin is 71 and that makes him one of the “olds” and I know the olds sometimes have trouble understanding just what is involved in pulling off some of the technical marvels we have in modern times. But even he must realize that the idea that Russia is going to, from scratch mind you, develop a AAA console on par with current generation Sony and Microsoft products is simply not going to happen. The idea of seeing something ship out of these Russian tech companies in three months that is anything other than a slightly molding potato with a poorly drawn illustration of Microsoft’s Clippy on it is fantasy. Sony announced the PS5 in April of 2019, meaning development started well before that, and released it for purchase in November of 2020. That’s a year and a half from announcement to release, roughly six times the timeline that Putin is looking for. Good fucking luck.
Oh, and that’s not all. Putin’s order also demands that these companies make these consoles ship with an operating system and backend that makes them playable from the cloud. And here I thought Google was crazy with its promises for Stadia! If you’re worried that those in Russia that actually know how all of this works are taking any of this seriously, fear not.
Per the Kommersant, analysts are already saying that “there is no competence to produce their own PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and creating such a system from scratch will take up to ten years.”
Which leaves us two potential outcomes. Either Putin walks this back and sets a more reasonable expectation for all of this, or several Russian folks are going to become very familiar with the term defenestration.
But what isn’t going to happen is the appearance of a AAA Russian console in three months.