14 DAY TRIAL // The Chinese authorities have apparently approved the sale of up to 5 million Xbox One home consoles on the internal market, although it’s unclear how many of them are actually being shipped to the country before the September launch.
NeoGAF says that the number was included in the earnings statement that was presented by BesTV, the company with which Microsoft is at the moment partnering in order to offer the new platform. The device is set to cost 3,699 Yuan, which is about 600 dollars and 460 Euro.
It is unclear how the two companies aim to sell close to 5 million units given the price, which is high for the Chinese consumers and might even represent a problem for someone in Europe or North America.
The Communist Party also has a tendency to censor gaming content, and many of the titles that Microsoft will launch on the Xbox One will also be offered in China, although the company has plans to compensate by delivering experiences from local studios.
BesTV is very optimistic at the moment and says that the console gaming market in the country can grow to 50 million units sold in the next five years.
The potential audience is big, but the country has a long-term tradition of acquiring both gaming hardware and games from a gray market, where prices tend to be high but seem to be smaller than those announced by Microsoft.
Official sales were banned for 13 years and it will be hard for companies to re-establish relationships with the potential customer base.
Chinese gamers also tend to be more interested in MMOs and in free-to-play titles, and those are the kinds of experiences that are not offered on the currently available home consoles.
The Xbox One will be launched in China on September 23, and the PlayStation 4 should also become available in the country before the end of the year.
Worldwide, the Sony platform has managed to get past the 10 million units in sales milestone, and the company says that there are signs that the solid pace will continue throughout the rest of the year.
Meanwhile, the Xbox One is rumored to have only shipped about 6 million devices to stores, and Microsoft has not offered an official update during the last couple of months, probably because of the limited impact of the price drop to 399 dollars or Euro.