Despite the challenges of selling consoles in China, Sony appears to be gearing up to more aggressively attack the market with its PlayStation 4, if its ChinaJoy presence is any indication.
A reporter with Chinese game site A9VG has posted a detailed English rundown of the company’s ChinaJoy press conference over at NeoGAF, and it’s worth a read if you’re curious about how the console manufacturer plans to approach that huge Asian market — which is locked down by PC and mobile free-to-play games after a 13-year ban on game consoles, which lifted last year.
A number of Western and Japanese games, including first and third-party titles, are set to be introduced into the market, including titles big and small — Ubisoft’s Child of Light, Sony and Thatgamecompany’s Journey are among them, as are Capcom’s Street Fighter V and Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV.
There was new announcement of a U.S.-developed game, too: free-to-play PC shooter Firefall will be coming to the PS4; its developer, Southern California-based Red 5, is owned by Chinese publisher The9.
Alongside those announcements, the company presented 13 new, locally-developed games, including Snail Games’ MOBA King of Wushu.
The company also showcased around 25 new Chinese indie games, and hatched plans to launch an indie game competition in China — the winners will have their games published on the PlayStation 4 and Vita.
The full post, which includes more details and photos from Sony’s event, is over at NeoGAF.
There are both good and bad signs for Sony’s possible success in China; this week, the country further relaxed restrictions on the devices, making it easier to produce and sell them in the market, but so far, adoption by consumers has been slow, and analyst firm Niko Partners expects that trend to continue.
Niko analyst Lisa Hanson also warns in a new blog post that “Chinese consumers will not pay premium prices; the developers must embrace free-to-play or other business models that fit the cultural reality of China.”
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2015