MUMBAI: Dream Sports, India’s leading sports technology company, today announced a gaming collaboration with Microsoft at the inaugural edition of World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit 2025 (WAVES), Mumbai. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed at the event saw the two companies unite to further India’s gaming market and build for future gaming innovations.

The collaboration aims to explore opportunities to publish Microsoft’s gaming portfolio in the Indian region and offer more AI-powered experiences to Indian gamers.

Together, Dream Sports and Microsoft will unlock the full potential of India’s gaming market, fueled by Dream Sports’ deep understanding of the young, tech-savvy gaming community.

Commenting on the partnership, Harsh Jain, Co-Founder & CEO, Dream Sports said: “We are eager to build innovative & future-ready experiences by leveraging Microsoft’s deep technical & AI expertise along with our base of 250 million Indian users. We look forward to working together to redefine the future of online gaming in India.”

“We are excited to explore a collaboration with Dream Sports, leveraging their vast ecosystem of 250 million users. Together, Microsoft and Dream Sports aim to elevate the Indian gaming landscape by tailoring it to local needs and delivering transformative AI-driven experiences,” by Puneet Chandok, President, Microsoft India and South Asia.

At a time when the Indian gaming industry is at the helm of a revolution, such efforts will help leverage new-age tech and resources for more interactive experiences, and a better developer’s infrastructure. Both companies highlighted the significance of concerted action, and believe this is just the beginning of a long-term collaboration focused on innovation, access, and building for India’s next billion gamers.

Fueling this vision is a rapidly evolving digital infrastructure and the emergence of India as the second-largest mobile gaming market. By hitting the $3.8 Bn mark in FY24, India’s gaming market has developed into a massive ecosystem of close to 600 million gamers (Leveling up: State of India Interactive).

With enablers such as seamless internet access, smart-phone penetration and greater catalysts of support within the public, investor, policy, and academia sphere, the share of gamers has increased manifold across diverse segments, with 66% gamers from non-metro cities and 44% female gamers (Leveling up: State of India Interactive). 

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 As part of its ongoing initiative to promote the Media & Entertainment (M&E) industry, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, is hosting the inaugural edition of the World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit (WAVES) in Delhi from 5th -9th February 2025.  The objective of the WAVES roadshow is to foster collaboration and engagement among stakeholders in the AVGC-XR (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics, and Immersive Realities) sectors, discuss the challenges faced by the industry along with growth initiatives, and raise awareness about the “Create in India” Challenge, a key feature of WAVES. The WAVES will also involve some interesting competition in the form of challenges that will engage young creators and techies. 

Neerja Sekhar, Hon’ble Special Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, highlighted the diversity within the media and entertainment sector, noting that it encompasses many different segments that need to connect and collaborate. She emphasized the industry’s need for a marketplace to support the growth, promotion, and distribution of content. “Any entertainment content produced in India—be it podcasts, reels, VFX, or comics—should have a viable market,” she stated. In response to this need, the ministry has organized the inaugural Indian Global Summit, ‘WAVES,’ set to take place next year in Delhi. WAVES will provide a platform for the entire industry to showcase its best work and foster interaction across segments. Neerja Sekhar also mentioned the importance of cross-segment dialogue as each area progresses, and announced that leading companies from around the world have been invited to participate in WAVES.

Rajan Navani, President, IDGS, Chairman & MD Jetline Group and JetSynthesys said that how we consume content today is drastically different from what was a few years ago. All stakeholders including the Government, private sectors, responsible stakeholders, industry bodies, and associations like CII and IDGS have come together to create an environment that is not only responsible but also increasingly valuable for India as well as the entire world. WAVES is a brilliant innovative idea that is going to shape the media and entertainment industry. This is a very important starting point of a generational change in the way media, and entertainment out of India is going to shape the rest of the world. The ecosystem approach is the only way to build any Industry Sector in a country like ours. In terms of consumption, and shaping it for others, India stands at a very big opportunity.

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