Tata Sky launches Actve Games

With great fanfare, Tata Sky has relaunched its Actve Games service. having tied up with Hungama Game Studio for this. This deal mirrors a previous deal between UTV owned Indiagames and Reliance BIG TV DTH. As per this, the Tata Sky subscribers will be able to subscribe to games on Tata Sky, priced at Rs. 40 per month. The service aims at providing over 50 different games through the year, at least six daily. These include diverse games in fields such as Sports, Action, Adventure, Arcade, Cards, Racing amongst others.

r. Vikram Mehra, Chief Marketing Officer, Tata Sky Ltd. said, “The key hallmark of Tata Sky has been the bouquet of interactive services being offered to our subscribers with Education being a key focus area. These services are no longer just value-added services; they are fast becoming the core business, which is why Tata Sky continues to innovate and build on its core offering of interactivity. With DTH gaining a very strong foothold into the Indian pay-TV market, Gaming could be the next big step after Education.”

“At present, the games offered on most DTH platform are quite basic. As a leader in offering superior technology, Tata Sky is introducing a completely new breed of TV gaming on Actve Games platform. The advantage with Tata Sky’s gaming service is that it is easily accessible, affordable and can be enjoyed by every member of the family with no age bar. This opens up a large market, not only in the larger cities, but also in the Tier II-Tier III cities and small towns.” added Mr. Mehra.

A delighted Yuvraj Singh said, “I am thrilled and excited to have a game designed around me and the real life situations around my cricketing career. To play in real life and on TV is fun and equally engrossing while competing against oneself. It is making me go jingalala playing it on TV at my home with my friends and family members as it is very addictive.” Yuvraj may be out of the test team for India but he can’t be kept out of the gaming scene as one of the games that shall be available on Tata Sky via hungama will be Yuvraj Singh Cricket Championship. Infact, the official launch for the platform was through the Yuvraj Singh Cricket Championship, a game that mimics India’s favorite pastime.

There are plans to deliver over 50 games in the next one year in arcade, strategies, shooting, racing, action and adventure, sports, celebrity and other genres to reach out to the entire family. There are also plans to introduce new games every month to ensure novelty and distinction from the embedded games on television. The campaign is being promoted as “making Tata Sky more MASS” and rightly so, because of the intentions to reach out to the general public who don’t own specialized gaming consoles.

Check out the following link, to know more about Actve Games:

http://www.tatasky.com/actvegames/index.html

Tata Sky launches Actve English

Tata Sky has always endeavored to bring us the best of Actve services. They have added another feather to their cap by launching Actve English. Tata Sky has tied up with British Council to launch Active English, primarily aimed at housewives who feel uncomfortable while speaking in English. The service is centred on training people in day-to-day spoken English. This service does not claim to train people in the grammatical intricacies of the language.

In an interview with Hindu Business line, Mr Vikram Mehra, the Chief Marketing Officer of Tata Sky said and I quote “Our customer research showed that a lot of Hindi-speaking housewives wanted to learn English. But they lacked the time and confidence to go to a coaching centre to learn English. We took this problem to British Council and together, over the last 13 months, we developed Active English. Keeping in mind the busy schedule of an average housewife, Monday to Friday, our content will be new and the whole week's content will be reviewed on the weekends,” he added.

The training content would be on air 24 hours and people can access it according to their convenience. Active English would also teach people the correct pronunciations of words apart from training for normal daily situations. While the primary targets for this service are housewives, the company expects it to be popular in Tier II and Tier III cities as well.

I checked out the Tata Sky Active English option yesterday and I was quite amazed with it. I think it is a can really help people learn English the proper way minus the exorbitant charges which a lot of “english speaking” courses charge. The fact that it is in collaboration with British Council gives it authenticity.

But what has caught people’s imagination the most is the very funny ad about a housewife speaking English. Kudos to the creators of this great ad, which combines subtle humor with information about the service. Check out the Actve English ad at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XVgsbNod74