A Look Inside India’s Gray Market Console Economy

India’s gaming market is set to triple to $7.8B by FY30, but it remains a mobile-first market. However, with the country’s purchasing power increasing, console manufacturers are not taking advantage of the country’s potential growth. It has led to a situation where an unofficial backbone supports a large part of the console market in India. 

Walk into the right lane in Delhi’s Palika Bazaar or scroll through a well-connected WhatsApp network, and you will find a thriving supply chain of PlayStations, Nintendo Switches, and Steam Decks arriving faster and more reliably than anything sold through formal retail. These parallel channels have existed for decades, but the last five years have turned them into India’s default distribution model.

Let’s take a look inside the console market, and why manufacturers like Xbox, Valve, and Microsoft are unwilling to cater to Indian gamers.

Why India’s Console Market is Falling Behind

Nintendo does not have an official presence in India, which forces Indian gamers to look at unofficial channels. Xbox has a token presence in the country, and its consoles are officially available via select manufacturers. However, finding games is challenging, as physical copies of Xbox Series S and Series X titles are difficult to find in the country unless they are mainstream games. 

Valve has officially partnered with NODWIN Gaming’s NovaPlay for digital game and microtransaction purchases on Steam. However, it does not have ties with hardware distributors for selling its Steam Deck handheld console and the other gaming accessories that it offers. 

Sony is the only home console manufacturer that has maintained a long-standing relationship with the Indian gaming market. The Japanese company has an official presence in the country and actively engages with the community with seasonal discounts, midnight game launches, and other events.

However, despite its presence, the latest PlayStation 5 Pro is yet to arrive in the country due to regulatory challenges surrounding Wi-Fi 7. Once again, gaming enthusiasts looking for Sony’s flagship gaming console are forced to turn to gray markets. 

Gray market suppliers have solved all of the mentioned problems. They have built agile supply chains that cater to gamers, and even offer an unofficial warranty for their products via technicians to make gray market purchases more appealing. Their operations highlight a gap that official distributors have not been able to close. 

We spoke to Kishor, a Gurgaon-based third-party console and accessories seller who operates via WhatsApp groups. He has been selling imported consoles ever since the PlayStation Vita days, and also offers jailbreaking services to customers who want to pirate games. He claims that “India has millions of console players, but very few regular buyers. Companies look at the low sales and think the demand is small. The demand is actually strong. It is just not visible in their books because most of it is going through gray channels.”

We looked at data from the India Gaming Report 2025 via DemandSage, which claims there are approximately 20M console gamers, representing 3.5% of the Indian gaming market of 591M players. 

A headline figure of twenty million console users sounds impressive, but it does not translate into a meaningful customer base. Many of these users play on borrowed or shared devices, whether in college dorms, gaming cafes, or at friends’ homes. Others are counted across multiple generations of old hardware, or participate through the second-hand market, which contributes little to formal sales.

Price is the next major barrier. Consoles and games are priced for Western incomes, not Indian spending power. A new PlayStation or Xbox costs more than the median monthly salary of most households, and game prices routinely exceed what local players are willing to pay. 

How India’s Gray Market Console is Replacing Official Channels

With limited official support and high game prices, many buyers look for cheaper ways to play. Jailbreaking, sideloading, and regional pricing exploits have become common practices, especially on devices like the Steam Deck— something Kishor sees regularly. “I get daily requests to mod devices. It is not because people want to cheat the system. They simply cannot afford a new game every month at global prices. If companies reduced prices or offered strong local discounts, piracy would drop overnight. Players pirate because the system does not include them, not because they want to break rules.”

He said that he sells approximately 700 Nintendo Switches a year, which includes both new and used or modded versions of the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, and Nintendo Switch 2. PlayStation 4s continue to sell despite being replaced by the PlayStation 5 as the current-gen console. 

He also pointed out how the release of the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED slowed down his Nintendo Switch sales in recent years, adding that “once users receive the device, many treat it as a portable PC rather than a traditional console. They load emulators, cracked games, and customized software environments. This turns the Steam Deck into a hub for sideloaded content like Nintendo Switch games.” 

According to him, the solutions are clear. Games need to become more affordable for Indian gamers to make purchasing a console for ₹50K ($560) or more worth it. Unlike Steam, which offers regional pricing for PC games, consoles don’t have discounted prices for Indian gamers. It leads to a situation where many gamers who want to experience AAA games either do not buy consoles at all or turn to piracy, with only a handful of enthusiasts purchasing games legitimately. 

These patterns show how the gray market does more than replace official supply chains. It creates parallel cultures of ownership, pricing, and content consumption that manufacturers cannot track or monetize. For console makers, this means India’s true demand remains hidden behind unofficial networks. For users, it means their gaming experience becomes a patchwork of imports, workarounds, and community-driven fixes. 

India’s gaming audience is young, fast-growing, and eager to spend within its means. The gray market should not be the backbone of such a large opportunity. With better pricing strategies, stronger retail infrastructure, and genuine market commitment, console makers can shift demand back into official channels. Until then, independent sellers like Kishor will continue to define how India plays console games.