By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Soundwave on 04 August 2023
Edit Thread
Norion said:
Soundwave said:

It isn't really that big of an assumption. 

If you were Chinese would you buy a Chinese Playstation or Switch knowing the government frequently halts new game releases? At one point just recently they didn't allow any new non-Chinese games to release in the country for like a whole year in part because they felt young people were playing too much. Think about that, think about having a PS5 and for an entire year no new games from Japan, US, Europe, developers, etc. Not to mention some games are just outright banned like GTA, Animal Crossing, Fortnite etc. Even Chinese publishers like Tencent had a 18 month period where the government would not approve a single game for release.

You can easily get a Japanese version instead and not take that risk at all. 

So I don't think this is just a one time surge. This is going to be a permanent thing, even if the government of China has a period where they allow everything and anything to release, you can't have any trust that they won't just wake up one day and decide now they have a grudge or problem with the US or Japan or even their own publishers like Tencent and if you own a Chinese model PS5 or Switch or XBox ... you're totally screwed. 

Notable degree is the key part. I'm sure people will keep importing Japanese PS5's but I doubt it'll be to this level for the whole generation. By like 2025 or so I'll be very surprised if demand for Japanese PS5's hasn't dropped off.

Why would it drop off in 2025?

The reason Chinese consumers are buying a PS5 isn't because they can't find a PS5 or Switch (it's happening with Switch too I'm sure) or there's a supply issue.

They don't want the official China versions of PS5 or Switch because they are worried (for good reason) that the government can just halt content at any time for any reason. 

For example I believe the government had a setup where children were not allowed to play games on weekday, only 1 hour on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday each ... and had to register with their real names or they couldn't play at all. Lol, think about that, would you pay money for a game console like that? 

The only way this situation changes is if the Chinese government basically bans imported systems, but they haven't done that yet, and even if they did it probably would just fuel an even bigger black market demand for these systems. From my understanding they've tried to halt online orders of Japanese systems, but you can still easily just go into the main retailers or any number of side vendors who bring in Japanese systems every week non-stop. 

The only way for this to stop is for the demand to stop, but I don't see that happening either. China has 10x the population of Japan, it was already estimated that by 2026 the Chinese game market was going to become as large as Japan. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 04 August 2023