It's been 15 years, but China has finally lifted it's ban on video game consoles.
Back in 2000 the Chinese government imposed a ban on video game consoles, as it felt that they would have a negative impact on both the mental and physical development of the country's children. To be fair, that point has been made in almost every part of the world, but we've managed to deal with video games just fine, we think. We hope.
The ban didn't include PC or mobile gaming, but did prevent its citizens from purchasing any Playstation, Xbox, or Nintendo(the big three) console, which means that Chinese gamers now have 15 years of incredible gaming to catch back up on. They're going to get to play San Andreas for the first time, and Fifa 2002, and, well that's all I can remember for the minute.
This has been coming since January of 2014, when the country's Ministry of Culture approved foreign console sales, as long as the imported hardware was inspected by the governing body, and was only sold inside the Shanghai Free Trade Zone.
While that was a foot in the door for the big three, this latest development has added 1.3 billion potential consumers to their marketplace. The Wall Street Journal have reported the Chinese video game market to be currently worth just over $22 billion, which is up 23% from the previous year, indicating not only a large interest in the market, but one that is growing at an incredible rate.
Oh, the second Prince of Persia was good too.
Via The Verge
