Niko said that legal sales of the two new gaming consoles have been outright disappointing thus far, and the firm anticipates that only 550,000 units total will be sold by the end of this year. Sales could improve still if prices are lowered and more AAA titles get approved and released on the Chinese market.

The real opportunity, according to Niko, is in set-top boxes and Smart TVs, which are predicted to overtake console sales by 2019.

More here:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-07-01-xbox-one-ps4-sales-disappointing-in-china-report

With all the negative predictions about China, banned games and grey market consoles, 550K to me seems actually a good number.

But it seems that both Microsoft and Sony had bigger plans.

I wonder if Sony can reboot PS TV microconsole there.

Well, China is still a poor country in general.

550k is the projection for end of 2015.

To be fair it is lower than what these consoles sells on Brasil.

It's worth noting that this article is only talking about OFFICIAL sales in the country.

This number does not include imports from outside China. Consumers in China have been importing consoles for years from PS2 days when the console ban first started. In fact Niko partners themselves stated anywhere between 1-2m consoles were being imported/sold on grey market per year over the last decade.

So do consider that lot of people still import consoles, especially as PS4 took a long time to launch in China.

550k official sales is still low though, especially when some analyst forecast 1m. But then China video game market is small anyway and console revenue only account for ~5% of total gamer market. It will grow over next few years but don't expect USA like sales from China any time soon.

I honestly thought the country would be starved for games and would become a major player in sales numbers alongside US, Europe and Japan. But I guess they've been getting their fix with non-console gaming, and I'm sure the limited library doesn't help.

They can import any game they want. 

But PC and Mobile is king in China. The market there is bigger than the US when it comes to online games and such. 

Blizzard even switched Diablo 3 to free to play in China. 

Expect...

I feel like I can say "Told you so" to a couple of people but I don't remember who anymore.

Saw that a mile away. People would be better off with the gray-market consoles if they really want their console gaming fix.