Microsoft Readies 360 Launch For China

The Xbox 360 was launched in Hong Kong in November of 2005, but the system is not officially part of the Chinese gaming market. Microsoft aims to change that this year, pending approval from the Chinese government. Gamasutra has the details on the deal, which will receive intense scrutiny from the country's culture ministry. From the article: "Looking to China specifically, the report notes that Microsoft has begun working with Chinese internet service providers and computer manufactures regarding the impending launch, and also plans to hire personnel to handle sales activities concerning the Xbox 360 on the Chinese mainland, though a specific time frame for these future hires remains as unknown as the launch itself. Likewise, a price has yet to be confirmed for the console as well, though the Xbox 360 sells for HK$2,329 ($300) in Hong Kong."

Chinese Cloned it first.

[Gabrill]

Unfortunately, the Chinese had already introduced a working clone of the XBox 360, and the Microsoft branded one was seen as a poor quality fake. The Chinese version had dna inserted to make it glow in the dark.

This has gotta be a hard sell

[ihatewinXP]

The online potential of so many people really is big enough to get Microsoft into a territory where they had copied games the week after it came out.

I live in Beijing and before I ever saw a system they had the games copied and on sale for a dollar fifty. Now they are down to a dollar. No one will 'buy' a game - but xbox live accounts are a different matter. I guess in this case Microsoft has nothing to lose as they at least get the hardware sale which should be turning a profit by now plus a subscription

Re:

[Rob T Firefly]

Ninendo sells some funky controller N64 based thing with games built in in department stores - and thats the single legit example I know of.

Are you sure that's a legit product? Stores and malls here are full of N64 controller-shaped things with names like "Super Happy Fun Mage Joy Pad II" that are all NES bootlegs.

Re:

[k_187]

Nope. Its true, wikipedia said so!: Nintendo iQue [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[ThePhilips]

I live in Beijing and before I ever saw a system they had the games copied and on sale for a dollar fifty.

Well, game publishers had showed flexibility on several occasion.

As an example, many PC game titles can be bought in Russia for about $5-7.50 - with big holo sticker "Not for sale outside of Russia". You can go to black market and get same game for $2.50.

Western companies were really surprised to find that games are actually started selling in Russia. Even if people can get them on black mark

Re:

[Fry-kun]

Let me guess, they also improved its hardware specs by upgrading to cell processor and a blu-ray drive...

Re:

[Anaxagor]

Also, arent most Chinese people poor?

Yes. Especially in the countryside. But with a population of 1.3 billion:

all - most = more than enough to make it viable

Stand on any street corner in a place like Shanghai and you'll see plenty of people getting by on a few dollars a day, but you'll also see plenty of Benzes drive past.

No doubt it will be even cheaper again than the Hong Kong version...

Re:

[kabocox]

Stand on any street corner in a place like Shanghai and you'll see plenty of people getting by on a few dollars a day, but you'll also see plenty of Benzes drive past.

You know. I always hear about how the Japanese generally dislike buying US over a Japenese product. I wonder if the average Chinese would rather buy US than a Japanese product. Japan invaded them in WWII there should be some lingering public dislike of Japan that US companies should be able to make a buck off of. I find highschoolers here in t

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Japanese also don't like buying Korean or Chinese or European products - Samsung isn't a well-known brand in Japan. Japanese culture is wildly xenophobic, it plays along with the "buy domestic" meme, and with the exception of a few well-marketed luxury goods, people will opt for the domestic product, even when it's obviously inferior.

Here in China, the product's quality is more important. People will generally say they don't like Japanese people (although they'll also say Japanese people are very hard-wo

Re:

[kabocox]

Here in China, the product's quality is more important. People will generally say they don't like Japanese people (although they'll also say Japanese people are very hard-working, very polite, the women are very kind, etc.), but regardless of lingering racial resentment, Japanese goods are extremely commonplace and everyday. That's particularly true with small electronics like digital cameras or stereos.

Over in the US its price and performance. Sony, Nintendo, and Samsung are just as US to me as MS, IBM, Fo

Re:

[RuBLed]

I must be new here....

Why?

[Duds]

Seriously though.

Given that piracy is so rife in that area that they're going to sell 3 games, and the system relies on selling games to make a measureable profit, why bother to launch at all?

Especially as it seems they need to go through a lot of very expensive hassle to do so.

Re:

[suv4x4]

Given that piracy is so rife in that area that they're going to sell 3 games, and the system relies on selling games to make a measureable profit, why bother to launch at all?

Especially as it seems they need to go through a lot of very expensive hassle to do so.

Few tihngs: they lan uch in China only now, and they lost money on launch, maybe they no longer lose money. Even if they break even, it's a win.

Second, the items in the xbox shop are much cheaper and at the same time harder to pirate. They can win fr

Re:

[EvilIdler]

>the items in the xbox shop are much cheaper and at the same time harder to pirate.

This doesn't matter, except for the Live Arcade, because only North America has access to rentable
movies and TV show episodes. MS has STILL given no hint about when they're going to give the
rest of the world access to all that downloadable, passive entertainment.

Re:

[MBraynard]

It has nothing to do with being a test bed. It has to do with distribution rights.

The content creators (Viacom, etc) did not give MS the distribution rights for other parts of the world. If they did, MS would be happy to distribute it.

Sales of distribution rights are the reasons for DVD coding, etc. It has nothing to do with 'testing.'

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[MBraynard]

It's just the way the business works. Viacom decided to liscense MS to distribute it's content in the US through it's 360 with a lot of restrictions. They may have agreements with other people in, say, France for distribution of media there that restrict the time/manor/place of the distribution of the same media also in France.

Itunes is also a good example.

Also, if you have some American media it might make sense to distribute it via XBL but would be more profitable to distribute it exclusivly through, say

Re:Why?

[jonwil]

Given that current XBOX 360's make replacing the DVD drive firmware to allow copied games much harder, I dont see how piracy is going to be that much of a problem.
Piracy was huge on the first XBOX but that was because microsoft made some mistakes (such as using weak cryptographic algorithims, not knowing all the details about the CPU they were using, not taking into account the fact that it is possible to read data from a HyperTransport bus, not enforcing checksums on all game data and saved games etc). But microsoft has learned from their mistakes and has probobly made the XBOX 360 more secure.

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[HappySqurriel]

How many of the 100+ Million PS2 systems are people's second/third systems, are used to pirate games, or have only been used as a DVD player?

Now, did Sony ever advertize that the number of people who were active gamers on the PS2 was only 2 times (to pick a number) as large as the XBox/Gamecube active gamer userbase?

Re:

[atomicstrawberry]

Because they have a population of 1.3 billion people. Even if only a fraction bother to buy games, that's still a huge market and Microsoft would be insane not to give it a go, especially given the way that China has been undergoing a major technological revolution recently. It's a huge emerging market. Launching Xbox 360 in mainland China is clearly an investment into the future, not something they expect to immediately begin to pay off.

What's the point?

[BeShaMo]

It seems a bit pointless, it's already widely available in the major cities (Imported from Hong Kong I guess). Then again, it's probably a part of a long time strategy of pouring loads of money into establishing themselves in China, and then reap the benefits in 10-15 years.

Censorship of games?

[Half a dent]

People worry about Jack Thompson wanting to censor content... at least Rockstar's Table Tennis game will sell well.

Light changes.

[shirizaki]

The iconic green logo has changed. The ring now displays all red and their first batch issue will deal with "That damn red, white, and blue ring of death" on their consoles.

Games

[malf-uk]

I'm really looking forward to the release of Guqin Hero [wikipedia.org]