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Videogame giants will soon be able to manufacture and sell consoles in China, after Beijing said it was lifting a ban first instituted in 2000.
Rules were relaxed in the country in 2014 to allow for the production and sale of "gaming entertainment" in the newly created Shanghai Free Trade Zone.
Now, according to the Wall Street Journal , the country's Ministry of Culture said that foreign and domestic console vendors would soon be able to make and sell their wares in the People's Republic.
It means that the likes of home-grown console manufacturer Eedoo, which is backed by Lenovo, will be competing with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.
China's gamers – having adapted to Beijing's attempt to protect its youth from supposedly unhealthy content – are big fans of massively multi-player online role-playing (MMORPG), which work better on PCs than consoles.
That said, the world's biggest videogame makers will no doubt be relishing the opportunity to return to such a potentially huge market.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @12:22AM
videogame makers will no doubt be relishing the opportunity
Trying to make a buck out of folks who can't afford to buy the gadgets they produce because they earn less than $2/hr?
I wonder how that is going to go.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday July 27 2015, @12:35AM
You might be right, but not for the reasons you think:
China's Rising Wages and the 'Made in USA' Revival [bloomberg.com]
Malaysia Joins the Outsourcing Parade [asiasentinel.com]
The iPhone 6's Battery Will Be Built By 'Foxbot' Robots In China [businessinsider.com]
China’s Troubling Robot Revolution [nytimes.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 27 2015, @03:05AM
I've been reading these sort of articles for a few months now, particularly the robotic factory stories, but I'm not buying it.
If the Chinese Communist Party want to have millions of unemployed former manufacturing workers rioting in the streets, then that's the way to go about it.
I don't think they'll let the big companies do this.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday July 27 2015, @03:14AM
The alternatives are wages rising too fast, causing outsourcing from China to cheaper countries and back into the U.S. (with a greater ratio of robots to workers), or an exasperation of income inequality between rural and urban Chinese. Or they can use robots themselves to stem the decline and figure out some socialist way to keep people busy and from dissenting.
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @03:47AM
The Communist Party can only control the economy so much. The real estate boom in China and the stock market crash are examples of how the economic forces are moving beyond the command and control phase of the Communist system. The rising standard of living will be a ratchet that slowly erodes the Communist party's power as the people expect more and the Communists can't dictate to the multi-national companies. Just think, major Chinese companies incorporate overseas to trade on stock markets outside of China. These companies will eventually mature to the level of other multi-national corporations in the Western countries, growing beyond their dependency on the Communist party.
And the multi-national corporations are going to find the lowest cost of production no matter where it is in the world. The economists who think that these companies are going to stay in China because of inertia are fooling themselves. There were economists who thought American industry would stay put because of the supply-chain advantages of the existing infrastructure. Everyone in the rust belt knows how that worked out. Companies will move their production to the lowest cost country, even if it only saves a couple of cents on the dollar.
What worries me most about China is there military build up and posturing. When their economy sputters, there will be a good chance that war will be seen as a way for the Communists to keep power. The war machine would provide full employment and an outside target to unify the people. And there are plenty of targets for China to pick on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:57AM
way to keep people busy and from dissenting
Perhaps allowing the sale of these consoles is seen as a way of pacifying the masses. Juvenal's phrase panem et circenses can be translated as "bread and circuses" or "bread and games [tertullian.org]".
Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things----Bread and Games!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 27 2015, @02:42PM