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China Games

China Lifts 13-Year-Old Foreign Console Ban 54

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the moving-on-up-from-a-jaguar dept.
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."
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China Lifts 13-Year-Old Foreign Console Ban More

China Lifts 13-Year-Old Foreign Console Ban

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  • I assume games are still restricted.

  • 13 year old foreign gaming console ban? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why not just import 12 or 14 year old foreign gaming consoles?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bozzio ( 183974 )

      I see what you did there.
      I don't see just why you did it, though.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 )

      Why not just import 12 or 14 year old foreign gaming consoles?

      Geez! Why can't you be quiet?!? Now I'll have competition from other slashdotters!

  • Assuming they allow purchasing from PSN and Microsoft Store etc., the Indie Game market could really soar from here. This is a pretty beneficial moment for more then just the big head companies.

  • Still more to be done (Score:4, Funny)

    by Akratist ( 1080775 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2014 @08:59AM (#45886885)
    They still need to lift a ban on weed and frozen pizzas (if there is one) to get the full Western "console experience"...

  • *hands in (already-mostly-ceremonial) geek card*

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 )

      *hands in (already-mostly-ceremonial) geek card*

      Casseroles are still banned. Have a pot sticker.

  • To even allege the former ruler for life would frown on this, one must remember, he was a former bandit chieftain who joined the revolution so he could have a bigger group of bandits to command (and do away with the other commanders in his path to ultimate leadership) Mao was not a true communist at heart and was in it for Mao.

    Which, if you think about it, is the theme for a heck of a lot of games. Just change the title character to Young Mao and you are golden.

    "You heard me, change the title from Pac-M

  • Big Deal (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Big deal, consoles are widely available here already, and have been for 20+ years.

  • Just for historical interest, here's the Slashdot article from year ago [slashdot.org] when they started to plan lifting the console ban.
  • 1 thing I know is that if you put 280 million people on a software chances are you will get it hacked eventually. Increase that number to billions and your chances increase with numbers I like. Maybe if big companies like Sega, Sony, Microsoft and all others think their creations arent hackable (I'm serious...I think they think people don't hack console games) like they think they are, with this number of people using consoles, I hope in a good evil way, it gets hacked so easily they will have to put more e

    • Re:Thats good for PC Gamers (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CronoCloud ( 590650 ) <cronocloudauron&gmail,com> on Tuesday January 07, 2014 @12:07PM (#45888677)

      Let me guess, you're not a native English speaker. Let me also surmise that you don't live in the UK, US, NZ, AU, or Japan. Because in those regions....people actually pay money for software.

      The only people wanting to start conversations about "flip-top" PS2's and HDLoaders on the PS2 Linux forums were not in any of the above countries.

      The reason developers/publishers put more emphasis on console games (which are actually computer games since consoles are special purpose computers) is because console gamers spend money. Especially so compared to PC gamers in Eastern Europe and the Second/Third World.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        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, no

        • Perhaps you aren't aware, but PSP, Vita, PS3 and PS4 games are not region encoded.

          Oneof the reasons australians pay more is that it's a english speaking country far away from the other english speaking countries. It didn't use NTSC encoding or 120V power so they couldn't just send australia the US stuff, and they don't use American spelling! They also have a totally wacky and outrageous rating system. The exchange rate is also part of the issue. Not taking into account the tiny population. At least with

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AK Marc ( 707885 )
            First it's:

            PS2's and HDLoaders on the PS2 Linux forums

            Then it's:

            PSP, Vita, PS3 and PS4 games are not region encoded.

            I'm confused, why did you change your focus from specifically PS2 to everything else? Seems pretty deceitful.

            • Don't be so literal.

              the PS2 reference was what we call a "for instance" showing my point that it isn't Anglophones or Japanese that are pirating. The same would have applied to the PS3 Linux forums. The people wanting to turn PS3's into "PirateStations" weren't in the Anglophone nations or Japan.

              And as I said, region encoding of games hasn't been an issue since 2006!

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by AK Marc ( 707885 )
                Good, then I can buy games in AU for my US Wii? I bought it after 2006, so it can't be an issue, right?

      • Because in those regions....people actually pay money for software.

        Or maybe they're in high school or college. I rarely paid for games and other software because I rarely had money. Since graduating, the situation has completely flipped around. Still, I remember wondering how game developers and publishers could be making any money. Everyone around me seemed to be pirating their games, either through modified executables on their PCs or by chipping their consoles. This was all in a fairly affluent area of the US.

        console games (which are actually computer games since consoles are special purpose computers)

        Well, yes, and a Mac is a PC (in that it's a "personal comput

        • Everyone around me seemed to be pirating their games, either through modified executables on their PCs or by chipping their consoles. This was all in a fairly affluent area of the US.

          Where? I'm in the midwest and nobody but nobody chipped their consoles. You want a game, you paid for it, or if you were young, got mom & dad to pay for it. Or you rented it, or found a used copy.

          It's probably a selection bias thing, different locales different attitudes.

          • Southern California. I'm sure it is an issue of selection bias; I had a lot of foreign friends during high school and college, and fairly technically-minded ones, at that. Especially during college, I had a lot of free time, a decent computer, and access to an on-campus file sharing server with a few TiB of movies and games.

  • Now they can all go out and buy 13-year-old consoles.

  • Logged on to my favorite MMORPG today and found myself confronted by an enemy with a billion strong army. I think I'll just sit back and read a good book or something.

  • and other consoles made before 2000. written natively in the Chinese language. featuring games of feeding pandas.

  • A quick search on Taobao (the number one Chinese online market place) yields more than 60000 results for 'xbox':
    http://s.taobao.com/search?q=xbox&commend=all&ssid=s5-e&search_type=item&sourceId=tb.index&spm=1.6659421.754896237.1&initiative_id=tbindexz_20140108 [taobao.com]

    People that want one can easily get one. Same for satellite dishes, which are illegal in China, but nevertheless easily seen on most apartment buildings in Beijing.

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