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Lawlight on 06 March 2013
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hsrob said:
Lawlight said:
Mummelmann said:
drkohler said:
MARCUSDJACKSON said:
i'm in doubt of Sony releasing PS3 in China.

The PS3 has been available in China for quite some time. it is sold through an official Chinese distributor. The price is so high though that the numbers are irrelevent compared to the black market.


Yeah, I don't understand where people get this notion that China is a big and vital market for consoles, its really not. Same goes for India. I guess people are thinking high population = high sales, an incredibly simplistic way of seeing things that reveals a complete lack of understanding of economics, markets and cultural difference. It was the same with the outlandish Wii predictions, "Oh, just wait till the Wii launches in China and India, it will be madness!" The Chinese market won't to much for the PS3 and even if it did, the results would be in, China is not like the 3rd world or super poor developing countries where the adoption rates lie half a decade or a whole decade behind the West. If anything, Chinese middle class, the most likely customers for consoles, will have the same adoptation patterns as Korea and Japan.

This folly needs to stop.


So, are you saying that the average salary in China, India or Brazil is the same as that of developed countries like the US, Australia or Europe countries? Because that's the only way to explain how someone can think that PS3 sales won't increase in those countries when it becomes affordable there.

Those countries may not be "big and vital market" but add all those smaller countries together and you get the console race winner. PS2 sold more than 25M in Asia (not including Japan) - where do you think those sales came from?

The average salary in China is still somewhere between a fifth and a tenth of what it is in developed countries so they are not going to magically hit some threshold in the next couple of years where PS3s will suddenly become 'affordable'.

However, due to high levels of inequality, it is already quite affordable to a small percentage (still large no.) of the population, and that number is growing every year but we're not going to hit some tipping-point in the short term which will result in PS3 sales taking off.  The system has been available there since days after the US launch for anyone who had the money to buy.

Furthermore trends in China aren't years behind other countries, they are months behind. It's just the percentage of people that are able to partake in all the latest trends is smaller.  Strangely enough by next year PS3 will be old news, even in China, and very few people will be interested in getting one, popular attention will move onto the PS4 etc. just the same as everywhere else, even if for many it's not realistically affordable.  China is very polarising in this regard, people either have the latest and greatest imported goods, or the ultra cheap Chinese knock-offs, a year from now PS3 won't be in either category.


Terrible damage control. Was the PS2 old news when the PS3 came out? Nopes. 1/3rd of the PS2 sales came after the PS3 came out. PS1 sales were around 70-75M when the PS2 came out. Anyone with an ounce of logic can see that PS3 will still well after the PS4 comes out.