14 DAY TRIAL // Both Sony and Microsoft plan to launch their next-gen computer entertainment systems in mainland China, seeking to gain access to the massive market of over 1 billion members of the People's Republic of China.
While the consoles are already available over there via various importers from Hong Kong, the companies will reach customers much more easily once the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles officially launch in China.
In case you're wondering how potential customers feel about the two eight-generation consoles and how the balance of power between the two could change in September, when the Xbox One permeates the Chinese market, well, you're in luck.
A poll taken to gauge the average interest of the Chinese gamer in the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and other devices shows that Sony's creation is coming out on top, garnering 57.3 percent of the votes, while the Xbox One only managed to score 11 percent of the total votes.
The second most popular device in China, positioned between the Xbox One and PS4 at 18.7 percent, is the PlayStation Vita. Which is another win for Sony.
Another interesting detail is that most of the respondents said that they would rather buy the device of their choice from gray-market importers rather than official channels.
The poll comes courtesy of Games in Asia, and the video game culture website reveals that the survey was conducted with a sample size of 6,665 voters. This means that it's not necessarily representative of the entire gaming market in China, and that the website's audience might also be biased toward the PlayStation 4.
"Other polls and comment threads on the Chinese web that I've come across suggest the same thing: China's more excited for the PS4 than it is for the Xbox One, even though the PS4 seems to be significantly further from release," GIA states, commenting on the possible bias in the poll results.
The results don't seem to be much different from the many other ones leading to the release of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in other areas, almost all of them showing that Sony's system was more desired than Microsoft's.
The market reality reflected the data in the polls, with the most recent NPD sales report showing that the PlayStation 4 dominated pretty much every market where the two consoles were released, including the United States, month after month.
However, the Xbox One might get a leg up on the competition heading into China, as Microsoft has established a deal with BesTV, a leading Chinese Internet TV set-top box manufacturer, as well as entered an exclusive distribution contract with China Telecom, the country's third-largest telecommunications company.
For the time being, there are no details regarding pricing and the exact launch date of the Xbox One in China, but we'll come back as soon as the information becomes available.
