NEWS /
Budget 08: Games To Get Slightly More Expensive?
29 Feb, 2008, 4:56 pm IST | by
Abhimanyu Radhakrishnan
|
|
The Finance Minister has thrown a bit of a googly to Indian gamers in his 2008 Budget Speech. Sample this: 151. Similarly, I propose to increase the excise duty on packaged software from 8 per cent to 12 per cent to bring it on par with customised software which will attract a service tax of 12 per cent. Now all games bought off the shelf qualify as "packaged software". However, excise duty is levied only on locally manufactured products (as against customs duty which is levied on imported stuff). Thus locally made titles including most PlayStation 2 games, will be 4% more expensive. Milestone Interactive (which prints and distributes PS2 games in India) chief, Jayant Sharma told Tech2.com that he would like to look at the fine print but admitted that the hike would be passed on to consumers since Excise is typically slapped on the final selling price. Gaming industry sources also seem divided on the definition of what constitutes 'local manufacture' of a game. For instance EA does the final mastering of many titles locally - will those prices go up? We'll update you as more industry figures study the budget and provide us their official positions The notes to the speech define packaged software as "packaged software or canned software" means a software developed to meet the needs of variety of users, and which is intended for sale or capable of being sold, off the shelf. Well, by that definition do DVDs and VCDs also qualify as "software" since they come enabled with menus that can be manipulated by the user? In the final analysis though, even though the hike is marginal, this won't do much good for an industry already swamped by piracy. |
Tags: Budget 08
Budget 08: Set Top Box Prices Unlikely To Drop
Budget 08: Rural Tech Gets Budget Boost
Budget 08: iPods, PMPs to be Cheaper
Budget 08: Cheaper Data Cards!
Leaked Images, Availability, Pricing,
Specs, Pre-order
Karbonn officially launches the A9 Android smartphone
14 May, 2012, 06:14 PM IST
Supreme Court website hacked in response to TPB, Vimeo block
17 May, 2012, 04:46 PM IST
Sony Xperia P up for pre-order on Infibeam, launching on 25 May
19 May, 2012, 04:32 PM IST
Samsung Galaxy S III pops up on eBay India for Rs. 44,770
22 May, 2012, 11:19 AM IST
16 May, 2012, 11:57 AM IST
The latest "should they-shouldn't they" event with Facebook is the lift of the minimu...
Top 5 potential Gmail alternatives
Google’s Gmail service is arguably the most advanced and feature-packed...
Five ways to beat the petrol hike
Petrol prices went up by a considerable amount post Wednesday, and this...
By Karan Shah
The Future of Broadband - views from industry leaders
One of the other events that took place at the same venue as the recent...

Microsoft's programme to incubate 10 Indian start-ups in cloud computing
26 May, 2012, 10:40 AM IST
Microsoft’s cloud solution was recently adopted by AICTE for all its technical institutions, while HP believes ...
Nokia announces $2.25 million global Sensing X Competition
Apple will give out a free app a week; App Store will update
Nokia officially states Symbian Carla is still on the cards
Facebook rumoured to buy Opera and launch browser

BlackBerry Curve 9320 announced in India...
Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos GSM announced
Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF201...
Future iPhone, iPads may offer optical...

















Mixx
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
delicious
reddit
MySpace
StumbleUpon
LinkedIn










































































_011517074205_160x90.jpg)















