I don't think that evil Xbox was waiting to region lock games in China to get full control over their consumers or whatever. Chances are MS was told thats what they have to do. They likely didnt take the time to make a counter argument and took a you cant beat the government stance. Sony seems to have pushed back and made an argument as to why region free was useful(as stated in the Sony exec quote above) and got China to loosen up on the rules. I still fully expect to see many games "banned" by the Chinese govt.
Why would evil MS go for their anti consumer policies if they knew Sony could go region free? The only logical reason is they assumed that Sony would have to play by the same set of rules as them.Iwata from Nintendo talked about the Chinese market saying that despite the console ban being lifted, there was still many problems(hurdles) with releasing a console out there.
I am curious how Sony will help make a dent in the market or how the Chinese react to consoles readily available in 10 or so years. They already have such a strong brand out there (PC) that it will be interesting who moves towards consoles that already hasen't(grey market).
Getting an XBOX One for me is like being in a bad relationship but staying together because we have kids. XBone we have 20000+ achievement points, 2+ years of XBL Gold and 20000+ MS points. I think its best we stay together if only for the MS points.
Nintendo Treehouse is what happens when a publisher is confident and proud of its games and doesn't need to show CGI lies for five minutes.
-Jim Sterling
