A planned ban by the European Union on the sale of gaming consoles to Russia will not have any impact on users in Russia, according to Eldar Murtasin, a leading expert at the Mobile-Review portal, in an interview with the TASS news agency. The key point is that Europe itself does not produce the items to be banned and there are no deliveries of consoles from the EU to Russia, not even through so-called “parallel import channels.” The expert explained:
“The ban will not in any way affect Russia and that’s because of a simple reason: consoles are not made in Europe. Consoles from Europe are not delivered to Russia through parallel imports and Europe can’t ban these deliveries to anyone or in any way.”
Earlier, the Reuters news agency reported, citing a European diplomat, that a ban on the sale of video game consoles, joysticks and flight simulator controllers was to be included in the 16th EU package of sanctions against Russia. This, according to the information, is because European officials believe that Russian soldiers use “video game controllers to operate drones.”
On January 28, EU Chief Diplomat Kaja Kallas stated that the EU sanctions against Russia could affect the PlayStation consoles of the Japanese company Sony and the Xbox of the American company Microsoft.
However, Marvel Distribution, one of the largest IT distributors in Russia and the CIS, stated that a significant part of the sales of gaming consoles are handled through Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates and China. “Therefore, the EU measures are mainly populism” the company’s press service told TASS, adding that European politicians invent “nonsense” because of their lack of influence, as noted by expert Eldar Murtasin.
Earlier, Yasha Haddadshi, the head of the Russian Association of Video Game Retailers and Importers, stated that there is no country in the European Union that produces gaming consoles and that the consoles imported to Russia are not imported from the EU. The situation with flight simulators is a bit more complex, as some experts noted. For example, IT expert Vladimir Sykow said in an interview with Radio Komsomolskaja Prawda:
“What concerns flight simulators, it is difficult to say anything. If we are talking about games in their pure form, not about professional services, then they are mostly American in most cases.”
As we know, EU sanctions are not relevant for US companies.