these numbers are very good, the second biggest market UK for example has 4 million consoles by now of both X1 and PS4 together 


so now consider that in China
-both consoles came much later
-both consoles were only available in shanghai for a period of time (18 million people)
-its only official numbers, unofficial imports could be higher.

I dont think China will be as big as USA or Europe as whole but they have a fair change overtaking UK and Japan to be second despite being all about mobile there. The sheer number of consumers are enough for that

That's disappointing, then again I didn't expect huge numbers since the majority of China's population is poor.

I wouldn't say they're good, but they are expected. People where WAY overhyping the Chinese launch, and its turned out quite soft. Also like it or not, its middle class still only makes a few thousand dollars a year. People don't want to spend 15-20% of their yearly income on a gaming console. Once they start going down to around 200 USD's (around 1200 chinese yen) I could see it much more successful. Until that however, China is going to be a problem. Also with the amount of restricitons on games sold in China, and it only adds to the problem.

That's based on 2014 data. Also, PPP seems to be the standard way of measuring the economies so why bother with nominal?

"Nominal GDP does not take into account differences in the cost of living in different countries, and the results can vary greatly from one year to another based on fluctuations in theexchange rates of the country's currency.^[2] Such fluctuations may change a country's ranking from one year to the next, even though they often make little or no difference in the standard of living of its population.^[3]"

There's also flaws in using PPP but I think it's better suited for this discussion. 

Here's another source that uses GDP (PPP)

http://www.worldsrichestcountries.com/ 

The main reason why I posted all of that is too simply to counter the notion that china is poor.  

in the huge cities there is a larger living standrad its over 50 million people having 20k dollars living standards in gdp per capita PPP.

People never overhyped the numbers but downplayed and still are downplaying it, like i said china will never become a big market but they could still overtaking the UK and become second biggest national market for consoles just simple by their size because gaming in general is very big in china.

Its not chinese being poor but them more being into PC and mobile, they dont have this console culture and maybe never will have dueto consoles being banned for a long time up until recentley.

http://www.statista.com/statistics/308454/gaming-revenue-countries/

Doesn't matter if it's from 2014 in this case ... 

PPP is NOT the standard way of measuring national income since it only describes purchasing power relative to the costs in a region ...

Nominal GDP on the other is a benchmark for national income since it accounts for the exchange rate of a currency ... 

PPP really isn't better suited for this discussion since both the PS4 and X1 actually cost more in China so if we were to base PPP on those commodities it would be the US that comes on top compared to China ...

No surprise here, we've said it before that China is PC and Mobile centric and the grey market is huge and way cheaper.

But of course, I would still like the consoles to succeed in China because it may translate to more Japanese games getting localized.

At least it opened up a new market.

Did they expect the gaming market to see a growth much like the movies' market over night in China?

Even in that scenario, china is not poor. Their middle class and rich can afford gaming as hobby. Maybe their poor can too. Just about everyone spends a lot of money on entertaining themselves.