Kotaku

The Xbox 360 is banned in China. As is the PlayStation 3. In fact, most consoles are banned in the world's most populous nation, with the exception of a select few. Like the Nintendo 3DS.

As it has with previous pieces of hardware — like the DS — Nintendo has been able to secure a Chinese release (through its partnership with iQue) for its upcoming gaming handheld, with the 3DS due out there in April.

It'll be branded the iQue 3DS. The iQue DS had unique copy protection that meant Chinese games could only be played by Chinese systems (though Chinese systems could play everywhere else's games); it remains to be seen whether the iQue 3DS will continue this practice.

裸眼3D掌机3DS将于四月后登陆我国及其他亚洲地区 [Gamrade]

http://kotaku.com/5730208/the-3ds-will-not-be-banned-in-china

Well that good for Chinese gamer's I guess

And Avatar was like the highest grossing film in Chinas history.

Sony and MS must be mad.

edit> why didn't you upload the pic?

nice so more 3DS's to make then

Never realized all those consoles were banned in China. That's nuts @_@

Awsome pic!

OT:

Go China!

China bans game consoles?

Errrr....

That's.....why?

That 'copy protection' was just extra flash memory that contained chinese characters. iQue DS games look for chinese characters and crash if run on an normal DS. Normal DS games run just fine on the iQue version but just don't access the extra memory chip.

I guess their contract worked out pretty well the first time around to just ship the standard version around the world and hire iQue to add a flash chip for the China version. I guess if the DS is made in China anyway, it's not that big of a deal.

The big deal in China is software can be copied (somewhat) legally, so there's a lot of MMO subscribers. While they might not have any copyright protection on the software, they can still control access to the servers. I guess this also means that Nintendo plans to make a profit on every 3DS sold, and don't sell their products at a loss like MS and Sony since they aren't guaranteed to make significant software sales in China.

No reason for Sony or MS to be mad. If they want they can also associate with a chinese business man and release their console under a new name like Nintendo is doing. I guess they arent doing it because the new chinese company would be own 50/50. Seems profitable for Nintendo though, if not, they would stop releasing their hardware under the iQue brand.

Edit: OP, theres somewhat of a big error in the thread title. Nintendo 3DS is effectively banned, thats why iQue is releasing a iQue 3DS.

Does anyone know why China is banning video games?