Putin orders development of homegrown Steam Deck-like gaming machines — 100% self-sufficiency goal apparently applies to gaming, too
The literal deadline for the official responsible for draft planning is June 15, 2024.
Vladimir Putin recently approved a list of development plans for the Kaliningrad region of Russia, and it surprisingly listed creating a Steam-like ecosystem, including a handheld device, among the key goals. Part of a new nine-point plan handed down from Putin to PM Mikhail Mishustin, the new Russian gaming platform should include desktop and portable hardware, an OS, and a cloud system for gaming. The plans, spotted by PCGamer, indicate that PM Mishustin has a “period of execution” until June 15 to assess and organize the production of the gaming machines and ecosystem.
From a machine translation of the official instructions, we know that this nine-point plan was precipitated by a meeting in January concerning economic development in Kaliningrad. Third on the list is the diktat regarding developing a whole new gaming ecosystem.
“Consider the issue of organizing the production of stationary and portable game consoles and game consoles, as well as the creation of an operating system and a cloud system for delivering games and programs to users,” says the Putin-approved instruction.
We see that PM Mishustin needs only to consider and create outline plans for the gaming ecosystem before the period of execution, which is set for June 15, 2024. Of course, preparing meaningful plans is still a big task, but it should be achievable enough for Mishustin to feel relatively safe standing on balconies.
Local media has already been pondering the feasibility of Russia creating a viable gaming ecosystem from scratch. Industry figures in Russia reportedly agreed that a meaningful timescale would be five to 10 years. However, given the experience deficit and time constraints, the platform might be as much as 15 years behind platforms like Steam, technologically speaking, by the time it launches.
Other reports examine why the Kaliningrad region might have been chosen for this games industry project. Kaliningrad is a Russian enclave sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, with access to the Baltic Sea, and operating as a special economic zone (with tax and customs duty breaks, etc). The region is also home to a recently opened silicon production facility estimated to produce 200 million silicon wafers annually.
It would be better for Russian gamers if the Ukraine war ended, and sanctions followed suit, so AMD, Intel, and Nvidia hardware could be put back on the menu. If not, a ‘Russian Steam Machine’ might have to run on Baikal processing power or adopt some limp Chinese chips, for example. Russia probably has less work to do on the software side, as it already has Astra Linux for the OS, which could be made more PC gaming-friendly using Proton, following the Valve / Steam playbook.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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bit_user Can you really call it "homegrown" if all of the important components are designed & made in China?Reply -
Ice2burn
It will probably fail, but it's something to begin with. We can't call any complex technical product "homegrown" in the modern days. American videocards, assembled in China, which use chips manufactured by Taiwan, which was made on Holland EUV equipment from China/Norway silicon and so on ...bit_user said:Can you really call it "homegrown" if all of the important components are designed & made in China? -
bgunner I'm curious, if this actually comes to fruition, how this will impact existing ecosystems currently out there.Reply -
endocine Ruzzia has no problems getting any materials or supplies if it really wants them, despite any sanctionsReply -
mitch074
Oh, considering history, it's probably more a case of "we'll make a cheap clone of it" - like they did for many consoles (and processors) of the 80's.bit_user said:Can you really call it "homegrown" if all of the important components are designed & made in China?
China wouldn't be interested in making those : while they're happy about buying cheap oil and gas, selling hi-tech stuff that they themselves need internally wouldn't go too well.
They might sell surplus production, but considering how much China hungers for 7nm chips and how little of it they can produce internally, it sure as heck isn't going to sell them to Russia - be it for game consoles or whatever - any time soon. -
bit_user
I know "homegrown" is a relative thing, but looking at the recent history of computer products from Russia, about the only thing I've seen that truly has a claim to the term "homegrown" is their ELBRUS CPUs, which I doubt would be used for something like a handheld gaming device.Ice2burn said:It will probably fail, but it's something to begin with. We can't call any complex technical product "homegrown" in the modern days. American videocards, assembled in China,
When talking about US tech products, at least you can point to the fact that the hardware & software design is primarily by the US (even if some of the work is outsourced). Yes, manufacturing is outsourced, but (aside from the cutting-edge chips) is also largely commodity and can be relocated if necessary.
Saying you need indigenous equipment is setting a whole new standard for "homegrown". I think most people wouldn't agree with that definition.Ice2burn said:which use chips manufactured by Taiwan, which was made on Holland EUV equipment from China/Norway silicon and so on ... -
why_wolf Yeah Chinese clone consoles incoming. They'll have an easier time on the actual game development front, but realistically they will get flooded by the Chinese game devs who already know what they're doing. So many gacha games.Reply
Of course I doubt the Russian government is actually going to do anything beyond making this announcement. As soon as internal supply can produce what the Russian military needs there will be zero government interest or money to produce additional commercial products.
There probably is one or two government ministers who are aware that all Russia is doing is trading a flood of Western products for a Tsunami of Chinese ones. So the end economic position for Russia doesn't change at all, being reliant on commercial imports.