Hey,

I just thought about the next generation and the development of worldwide sales. So far there are three major markets, north America, Europe/Australia and Japan. Do you think China could make a step forward to be the fourth market? Right now, China is a region where consoles will be released 1 or 2 years after their launch in the current major markets. But Chinas economy and wealth is increasing dramatically. Piracy could be an issue for developers and producers to avoid china. But just looking at the crowd of almost 1.3 billion people, that could be a huge market in the future. I know there are parts in china where the people don't even have electricity. But in the great cities things have changed. China has 120 (wikipedia listed "only" 44, other sources say 166 - 175, I read 120 in an article some time ago) cities with more than one million habitants.

Do you think in 2-3 years china will play a big role on the gaming market or is this china-hype just a bubble like it was 2001 with the .com-companies?

dunno most people in china who do game play on PC. Like starcraft and CS are big in china

Oh yeah a country that is notorious for pirating games will be the next market.

It will take a paradigm shift in the way video game companies think, in order to penetrate the market(s).

The issue with China, and other markets that pirate, is that pirating is....Very cheap to do. Video games cost $60 USD, or equivalent in most countries, but Chinese consumers don't have that kind of disposable income on games. But they aren't adverse to gaming, so they find the cheapest medium - pirated games, or PC games.

If I was a big whig at MS, Nintendo or Sony, I would find a way to reasonably sell games in those markets, and allow them onto the various network services.

One of the interesting things in China has been the emergence of the Western movie market. Once, it was a meaningless, useless market that drew very little money into the movie companies. Tickets to Chinese movie theatres are very cheap - around 50 cents (compared to $7.05 or so in the US), so profits are very low.

But production and distribution companies have been working on improving sales. And guess what? China now has multiple movies that gross $10m in revenue, despite piracy, and every other thing. Heck, Kung Fu Panda grossed over $20m by early July! It shows that the market, given the right conditions (good movies, cheap prices) can flourish.

If video game companies are making $0 from there, why not offer games at $5-10 prices, and sell them? It would most likely combat piracy by providing the legitimate, online-allowed game at near-pirate prices...And I can guarantee that when China actually had a better, less pirating economy, you'd still have the gamers there, so when the prices go up, they can deal with them.

>If video game companies are making $0 from there, why not offer games at $5-10 prices,


so.... if Piracy can lead to ridiculous price drop.. What stopping first world country to pirate even more? Heck, you, the company is giving people the incentive to do so.

could happen...

Using that logic, then, JP and US gamers should be pirating even more since European and Austrailia gamers pay incredibly higher prices for their games already.

The whole argument is that the Chinese market is huge...Could you imagine what would happen if.....Resistance: Fall of Man sold an extra 3,000,000 copies, even at $10 each? I mean, many games are at $19.99 and $29.99 for platinum priced games...$10 isn't very far from that.

China = pirate heaven

a game would cost like $2 per dvd so if its a 2 dvd game itll only cost 4 bucks

If you sell hardware for a profit even without software sales, you can make money. Also, online games like WoW can succeed since there is no way to pirate. So there are two strategies that can be used in even the biggest pirate countries.

but JP and US's lower price wasn't driven by Piracy. that's a HUGE difference there.

I don't see how you can mix those up.