China Lifts 13-Year-Old Foreign Console Ban

hypnosec writes "China has lifted the 13-year-old foreign gaming console ban, which it imposed back in 2000 as a way to protect the nation's youth from unhealthy content that may adversely affect their mental health. The temporary lift of the ban, which was announced Monday by the State Council of PCR (Google Translation into English), will make way for international console vendors including Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo to setup production facilities in the newly created Shanghai Free Trade Zone and sell their consoles throughout the country. The vendors will still have to go through local checks, including the ones from the Cultural authorities to ensure that they don't violate any of those rules."

Re:Thats good for PC Gamers

[AK Marc]

Your comment is wrong (about countries). In AU and NZ, hacking rates were higher because many releases were Japan-only or US-only, so the "smaller" markets would have more mod chips and such getting around restrictions because the number of legitimate titles was restricted.

If all region codes were eliminated for all markets (not even needed now, as HD PAL and HD NTSC are essentially compatible, PAL/NTSC being one of the reasons I kept hearing for why they were "necessary"), then piracy would decrease, not increase. When they make it harder to buy legal content, more people will pirate. But they want to sell the same thing for $10 in India, $50 in the US, and $100 in NZ/AU. So NZ/AU will pirate because they are paying 10x what others are for the same content.