The PS3 has been availale for quite a while now in China.

The catch was that a company who wanted to sell comsoles in China must have gone through a distributor fully owned by a chinese company (essentially by the state, which lead to exhorbitant prices, hence the grey market).

i went to china to train my chinese counterpart.  he did the exact same job as me and was smart as hell to boot.  he's wage was less than 1/5th of mine.   i went to his 3 room house (shared with a roomate) where he bragged that he had a 22 inch CRT TV,. first TV among his peer group.  his kitchen was single propane tank fueled stove placed in the hallway shared among each of the residents on that floor of the apartment building. 

this guy was considered middle class.

the chinese economy is growing and getting better but the difference in standards was jarring to me.  life altering even.  if he lived that same life in the west he'd be considered in poverty.  as far as i'm concerned he was in poverty,. he certainly deserved better for how smart and hard working he was. 

Did you read what I posted? Nintendo has already done this. The iQue Player was, in a way, a console. Declining to comment is not the same as no plans.

More on-topic, it might take years to see any results from this. And while they will allow console to be sold we have no idea what taxes the Chinese government will ask for.

Should be a huge market for digital gaming. Not so much for consoles. Due to the small spaces people live in and their limited income, having space and $$$ dedicated to a console is not high on their list I would guess. Because the PC has more uses, more people running a PC/laptop/tablet. Makes me wonder if they have Steam there?

Well I've been to Shanghai. It's a good place to start. I've been in like 4 huseholds, all new and shiny, big TVs. Parents working as a chef, taxi driver, teacher and so on. To me that middle class is not that poor (in SH, of course, bout that's not really China).

Also, there were all consoles available , apart from xbox360. I almost bought Ocarina of Time 3D for about 35 Euros, eurpean version.

Fun fact - there were far more Wii peripherals available than actual consoles. I wonder why.

This'll be great for the manufacturers who make money on their hardware. Which is currently PS3, 360 and 3DS to my knowledge. Not much software will be sold.