Not a month has passed since Microsoft announced that it will be releasing the Xbox One in China in September, courtesy of the communist nation lifting its ban on imported video games and consoles. Sony confirmed that the PlayStation will be joining Microsofts console in the Far East. Just like Microsoft’s collaboration with China’s BesTV, Sony’s also be working with a local company called Shanghai Oriental Pearl Culture Development. Both companies are part of the same massive Shanghai Media Group.
Sony and OPCD’s will form two companies, one to manage the manufacturing and sales of the hardware, and the other to manage the services plus the sales, licensing, distribution and R&D of the software. Sony China will own 70 percent of the newly formed Sony Computer Entertainment, but just 49 percent of the other new company dubbed Shanghai Oriental Pearl Sony Computer Entertainment Culture Development.
An announcement from the two companies stresses that the joint venture “will introduce quality, healthy games that are suitable to China’s national conditions and the preferences of domestic players, as according to the relevant government policies.” So they can look forward to censored PlayStation games over there and probably far less games, it’s also likely that the consoles might not be compatible with games released in other countries. Although it’s worth remembering that Nintendo’s China joint venture, iQue, never applied this kind of regional restriction onto the DS and 3DS it sold there.
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PlayStation have yet to give an exact or even a rough date for when their products will officially hit the stores in China, but given Sony’s earlier attempts plus its long preparation for this launch, they’ll likely try to beat Microsoft.