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China Ban Lifted for good

China Ban Lifted for good

A ban on the making and selling of video game consoles in China will be lifted after fifteen years. Both domestic and foreign video game console makers can now operate anywhere in the country – meaning good news for Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation.

This means video game console giants such as Microsoft and Sony can make and sell their respective consoles, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, where they currently couldn’t before.

Game consoles were first banned in 2000 due to fears that the devices — and the 3D worlds produced by them — had a negative effect on the mental and physical development of children. Last year, China eased those restrictions by letting game console-makers operate in an experimental 11-square-mile area in Shanghai, known as the free trade zone.

According to techinasia.com, the Chinese online gaming market in 2012 was priced at $66.2 billion Yuan, or $11.4 billion AUD.

The big three might find it quite a struggle to warm consumers up to the idea of once again putting a game console under their TVs. As Chinese market has been PC dominated due to that ban . In the past, companies found ways around the console ban.

For example, video game company Nintendo has been operating in China under the brand ‘iQue’. In a joint venue with Wei Yen, a Chinese-American software developer, the company released a number of ‘iQue’ consoles based on previous Nintendo consoles, with the only avail device currently being the iQue 3DS XL, based off the Nintendo 3DS XL.

Author:
Ioannis Nikolaos Tsouroupidis

Sources :
http://www.mcvuk.com/
http://www.reuters.com/
http://www.techly.com.au

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