toastboy44562 said:
1.) More people in China than USA, Europe, and Japan combined.
2.) The cost of living in a city in China is like the cost of living in Manhattan, Paris or London. While most of the Chinese population are poor there are still tens of million who are very wealthy.
3.) Economoy is at a steady growth. The pace of growth may be declining but China should be able to hold a 5% growth in GDP for many years to come.
4.) Most people did not want to import before because the government is very strict and controlling.
5.) chinese are not afraid to splurge on electronics. More people in China own cell phones than there are people in the USA and Europe combined.
6.) Sony and Nintendo may struggle because they are Japanese companies but Microsoft may be able to sell millions of consoles in years to come in China.
7.) Chinese may favor western games more than Japanese players meaning western games might appeal and persuade Chinese gamers to buy a console.
If countries like Brazil, Poland, Italy, Spain etc. can sell million of consoles China should easily eclipse them. I think Microsoft particularly can even the score with Sony. Sony has Japan but I think Microsoft can take China by the same percentage marketshare.
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1. Yes.
2. You mean to compare big cities like Beijing, Shanghai etc. ? Cost of living is comparably much less than the most expensive cities in the world(which you mentioned), but could be comparable with other big cities in the west. Still, the overall cost of living is much less, but the salaries are pretty good in the big cities. So, yes and no.
3. Yes.
4. No? It has always been very easy to buy imported games in local shop in China, and many people even import games directly from Japan, USA or Europe. The government has never really cared much about this to be honest. If I want to find a PS3 to buy, it would take me less than a 20 minutes walk to several shops that would sell this. And if I would go online I could buy it even easier, get it delivered the same day or the day after.
5. Yes.
6. No, this is more of a stereopypical view, or whatever you may want to call it. Most of the Chinese don't care where the product is from, and Sony(PlayStation) is the most popular gaming consoles in China and has always been. Nintendo might struggle and little bit but I honestly believe that Microsoft(Xbox) would have the toughest to enter this market. You must also remember that the cultural difference between Chinese and Japanese games are not very big, we both love Asian style RPG's.
7. Yes this is actually true. I believe that Chinese are more interested in western products than Japanese people. We are more open to "new things". At least from my point of view.
But I would also like to say, which I have said in other threads before. I don't think that the way consoles work today would interest Chinese people too much. I think that SteamOS might be more successful to be honest. To buy a console for 200-500 €/$ and to pay 50 for a game would not appeal to most people.
PC gaming in China and Korea is huge and I don't see how this trend would change.
Also PC gaming in China is very similar to smartphone gaming in the west, you pay less than 5 €/$ for a game, or you play something that's free to play. This is the gaming industry here, for both PC and smartphones. Very few people would want to pay 10 times as much for a game that they pay today.
Netyaroze said:
its not about the number of people its about their income.China is 30-40% of the us economy a big market but compared to US+EU+Japan its still way smaller. |
To this I would like to say both yes and no. There are many big cities in China, and in the bigger cities you have a very good salary, even comparable to western(Eurpean, North American) salaries. If you would count all the big cities in China that are "wester-comparable" in salaries and standard of living, you would perhaps gather around 100-300 million people. And in the rest of China, even in smaller cities there are a large number of people that have high salaries/good living.
So overall I would very much compare China to Europe or the USA in number of people with similar incomes. And in the future there will be more people in China than in Europe and USA that will have good salary.
But the main problem is that not many people would be interested in buying a console, even if they have the money.
I would like to see a SteamOS/Android-PC type of system that offers low-price games. Big or small games, doesn't matter. And the console should also be cheap(er), perhaps only cost 100-200 €/$ at launch. And the games should not cost more than 5 €/$ at launch. And all games should be sold mainly online. This would work in my opinion. But I can't see that this would appeal to western people, as most of them demand AAA-games and many want as new technology for the cheapest prices as possible, where as here we don't care too much if it's 2012 technology or 2014.
