14 DAY TRIAL // A Microsoft representative has confirmed that the company is getting ready to launch its Xbox One on the Chinese market and that it plans to add unspecified unique content in order to make the device more attractive to customers.
According to NeoGAF, at the China Shenzhen IT Summit, Zhang Yaqin, global vice president of the company, said that the launch of the Xbox line of hardware in China would take place soon, after progress was made on both the hardware and the software fronts.
The announcement comes only months after the Ministry of Culture of the Communist country announced that it was lifting a series of restrictions that made it very tough for foreign companies to sell consoles in the country.
The hardware was available via a secondary market and the Communist authorities are probably eager to integrate it into the real economy so that they can regulate and tax it.
Zhang has also explained that Microsoft plans to introduce content that is tailor made for a Chinese audience, although it is not clear exactly what that means.
The Chinese launch might not include all the titles that the Xbox One and the 360 play host to on Western markets.
A price has not been announced and an official date might be revealed in the coming weeks.
The Chinese video game market is expected to grow significantly in 2014 in order to reach 109.3 billion Yuan, about 17.5 billion dollars (11.8 billion Euro).
In January, Huawei Technologies already announced that it would launch a game console called Tron on the Chinese market during the second quarter of this year.
No specifications for the device have been offered and it’s unclear what games it will be able to play, but Huawei will keep the price low in order to attract a larger number of players.
Sony has not yet announced any plans to launch the PlayStation 4 on the Chinese market, but it will certainly be interested to compete with Microsoft, especially given the impressive number of sales that it could generate.
At the moment, the PS4 has sold more than 6 million devices all over the world and the number is expected to increase after the release of the recent InFamous: Second Son.
Microsoft has not offered hard sales numbers for the Xbox One since January, when the next-gen console managed to get past the 3 million unit mark.