I never understood the idea that you need a new hardware for developing countries. That's plain stupid. It's better to sell your previous gen console. I'm from Brazil and before PS360, games were really expensive (still are, but it was simply terrible back then). After the PS3 launched (and was pretty expensive here), a Brazilian company called Tectoy, famous as the local manufacturer for all Sega consoles from the SMS to the Dreamcast here (still manufactures SMS and Mega Drives) decided to create exactly that: a low cost console aimed at 3rd world countries, the Zeebo. It used small games that were sold at prices comparable to smartphone games and were sold digitally using a 3G network that was free for the console. They even sold it at Mexico too.

It was a huge flop. People simply preferred to buy a PS2 and use pirate games that were as cheap as Zeebo games. If Nintendo launches a 3rd world specific consoles that is cheap and has cheap games, Chinese people will just laugh, buy X360s or PS3s with mod chips and grab pirate copies. Sad but true.

Not so sure. Brazil and other developing countries even turned on good markets with decent sales figures. But China is another thing. Despite the inequalities, China right now is the biggest luxury market in the world, even bigger than USA. The country is the number one, or at least two, client for several luxury car companies (BMW, Ferrari, etc). Even if a minory has money in a 1.2B people country, that number can be bigger than the entire population of most nations. Size does matter.

Simply release the PS3 and 360. Cheap and with a large library. A new budget console will be plagued by poor 3rd party support and can't compete with massive libraries of 7th gen hardware. Of course, the X1 and PS4 will be available too because a lot of people there can afford it. 

Their biggest challenge is that China is used to F2P games on PC. Most developing countries were used to older consoles. You sell you old console for cheap there until thta market is mature enough to start buying you new ones. China isn't in that position because the mind share was in F2P on PC and they have to change that. Of course, nothing that some AAA PS360 titles can't do with some TV ads showcasing visuals much better than the average F2P that people are used over there.

Western things are becoming more and more popular in China. You just look at the movie business now China is one of the biggest sources of profit now, making more money than the UK and sometimes US. Just look at the latest Spider man it made 80 million there, thats the 2nd highest worldwide compared to when the first spiderman launched only making 4 million in china. Pacific Rim also made over 100 million in China. Not saying they're comparable markets but we all know China could have just pirated those movies but it shows that there is still a good market of paying customers.

Define: Launched

PS3s and X360s have been sold in China for years now

This shop in Shanghai http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.42.w1sjpx&id=36433000408

has been selling around 400-500 PS4s per month.

Vita TV would do well. Cheap investment with lots of cheap games. Also proprietary memory and not hacked.

Maybe they can copy Mario there without problem.

And what prevent some company of having a huge game center using psnow to give access to all games?? Sony can make a special pack for them.

Nice to know this. Sony is well positioned in the chinese customer culture.

Let me guess, Sony used it's CEO pay cuts to fund this aswell?

Hehehehehe.........

The ignorance is very very very very strong in this thread.......