The East Is Green. Xbox Green.
Sounds like Microsoft may be getting close to launching the Xbox 360 in China. There is a bit of discussion over at Joystiq about how significant the China market is.
The currently addressable Chinese console market is undoubtedly waaay smaller than 1.3 billion. You probably have 200-300 million reasonably well-off people in the cities. Narrow that down further by age, income and whatnot, and 40-50 million *potential* buyers sounds about right. Still, Microsoft found it worthwhile to launch in Hong Kong (7 million total population), Taiwan (30 million total population) and Singapore (5 million total population).
All consoles can currently be bought in China, but they are gray market imports, usually from Japan, and if you are a good bargainer, you will pay a premium of about $100 over the price in the original market. With the Xbox and PS2, many of these had been modded to be region-free and play pirated games, which you can buy for a couple bucks. There is no way to access Xbox Live from China at this point.
But I've always thought that Live could be a way for Microsoft to kill two birds with one stone. Chinese, like Koreans, love online play (they also are more favorable to shooters than the Japanese), and online verification could help thwart piracy. China has more than 100 million people online, second only in raw numbers behind the U.S. There is growing broadband penetration, but quality is spotty, especially when connecting to sites and services outside China.
The major obstacle has to be the game content passing muster from the authorities. You're never going to get Battlefied 2, which lets you play as Americans fighting Chinese, or Splinter Cell, where you have to infiltrate the Chinese embassy in Burma to get the dirt on corrupt PLA generals.
I wonder if, as part of the price of access, Microsoft will agree to support local developers. Maybe we'll see "Grand Theft Auto: Forbidden City", or an RTS where you lead the PLA in crushing democracy protests.
The currently addressable Chinese console market is undoubtedly waaay smaller than 1.3 billion. You probably have 200-300 million reasonably well-off people in the cities. Narrow that down further by age, income and whatnot, and 40-50 million *potential* buyers sounds about right. Still, Microsoft found it worthwhile to launch in Hong Kong (7 million total population), Taiwan (30 million total population) and Singapore (5 million total population).
All consoles can currently be bought in China, but they are gray market imports, usually from Japan, and if you are a good bargainer, you will pay a premium of about $100 over the price in the original market. With the Xbox and PS2, many of these had been modded to be region-free and play pirated games, which you can buy for a couple bucks. There is no way to access Xbox Live from China at this point.
But I've always thought that Live could be a way for Microsoft to kill two birds with one stone. Chinese, like Koreans, love online play (they also are more favorable to shooters than the Japanese), and online verification could help thwart piracy. China has more than 100 million people online, second only in raw numbers behind the U.S. There is growing broadband penetration, but quality is spotty, especially when connecting to sites and services outside China.
The major obstacle has to be the game content passing muster from the authorities. You're never going to get Battlefied 2, which lets you play as Americans fighting Chinese, or Splinter Cell, where you have to infiltrate the Chinese embassy in Burma to get the dirt on corrupt PLA generals.
I wonder if, as part of the price of access, Microsoft will agree to support local developers. Maybe we'll see "Grand Theft Auto: Forbidden City", or an RTS where you lead the PLA in crushing democracy protests.
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