China Allows Sales of Consoles Outside of Shanghai - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 30 January 2015 / 5,033 Views
The video game console ban in China was lifted last January. China has had a trial program of the sale of video game consoles in Shanghai. Microsoft was first to the market with the release of the Xbox One in September. However, there were only 10 games available at launch due to the government having to approve each game.
Sony has delayed the release of the PlayStation 4 in China, because they have been forced to make adjustments by the government. The console was originally supposed to launch on January 11.
The Chinese government has deemed the trial program in Shanghai a success and is now allowing the sale of video game consoles in the rest of the country.
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A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. Outside, in the real world, he has a passion for the outdoors which includes everything from hiking to having received his B.A. in Environmental Studies. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Shouldn't you use GAPP instead of "the government". And "forced to make adjustments" sounds a bit harsh. Made/asked to make adjustments sounds better to me. Forced to sounds so aggressive.
"I was forced to provide a valid passport while travelling to country X by the government" Sounds so harsh.
And to further complain (sorry), the article to me makes it sounds like that consoles has only been allowed to be sold in Shanghai, which of course is not true. I can buy an X1 in any big retailer in Beijing and online(wherever I live in the country) through any big retailer or online retailers like JD or Tmall, similar to eBay/Amazon. And I'm pretty sure that the big retail stores in other cities other than Beijing and Shanghai has sold the X1 as well, and not just online.
End of complaint. :)
Good news, hopefully it will boost the console market longterm.
" official console "
Good news. Any news about the new release date of the ps4 over there???
1% of 1.357 billion (China population) = 13,570,000
Well Microsoft would do well to maximize their head start then before this PS4 red tape thingy gets sorted out.
I don't expect a huge spike in sales for consoles in the short term, but it does give more potential for consoles in the future coming to China. We may eventually have a console market the size of the UK, and it could maybe just maybe tip the scales of the console wars.
Yes I think you are right, and I also don't think that console gaming will every be popular here, as it once was in Japan. Not to the same degree. We only have a larger population, and that's the only reason for how/why we could become a bigger market than them, or the UK or perhaps even France.
Because even if the Wii U sold 30 million consoles in China, we could still say it's not popular. So few here would actually have bought it in the end, even if the number looks enormous on a global scale it would be less, percentagewise, than if Wii U sold 5 million in the USA.
But yeah, like deskpro2k3 said, 1% of China equals 13,5 million people. And if only 3% of China would buy a console it would mean a market possible of 40 million consoles. A big boost for the global console market indeed. Even if the other 97% of the people here doesn't even know they exist.
In the end it comes down to how wealthy the middle-class are, and the popularity of consoles games.
