Russian president Vladamir Putin has reportedly tasked tech companies with creating a console to rival the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S.
According to Russian newspaper Kommersant (via ReadWrite), the Kremlin has ordered Russian developers to “consider the issue of organising the production of stationary and portable game consoles.”
It’s reported that tech group VK (who are behind the popular Russian social media platform of the same name) will be heading up the project, while production will be handled by the GS Group, who are currently the single largest Russian developer of TV set-top boxes. They have a deadline of June 15 2024 to draw up plans for both handheld and home consoles.
The orders also talk about developers working on the “creation of an operating system and a cloud system for delivering games and programs to users,” a la Steam.
However, analysts have said 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.”
