PS4 finally passed the examination, but lost the opportunity

The announcement of a formal listing only means the adoption of a government agency review. For Sony, the potential of the Chinese market may just be a story for investors.

March 10, Sony Computer Entertainment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Oriental Pearl Cable Music Culture Development Co., Ltd. jointly announced that PlayStation 4 (PS4) (CUH-1000 series) and Palm machine PlayStation Vita (PCH-2000 series) host and accessories products will be officially on sale on the mainland market on March 20.

At the same time, matching the Simplified Chinese version of the game will be listed simultaneously. Sony's computer entertainment announced the "sodium grams of the big adventure," such as the first listed 6 S4 games.

Sony Computer Entertainment China strategy Minister Tim Tianwu said that the information can be announced on the market is the result of joint efforts. He is one of the leading executives of Sony in charge of PS4 operations in China.

On the reasons for the delay, Sony's official response to Tencent Technology, said that in order to better meet the requirements of the relevant government departments, not the product listing to do more fully prepared, it will take some time for final adjustment.

However, Sony announced the news at a time when the PS4 was released in mainland China over the past few months, while its global release has been 1 years and 4 months away. As of March 1, 2015, Sony announced PS4 global sales have exceeded 20.2 million, computing nodes to consumers.

As a result, several insiders say the Chinese market may not be the next gold mine for Sony PS4.

The face of the Xbox, more than the competition

Now it seems that practitioners who have just participated in the Game Developers Conference may have confidence in Sony's market in China. This comes from a third party research report announced at the event. Jon Peddie Reasearch says the global hardware market has expanded to $67 billion trillion, with gaming consoles up to 16% more than tablets on the phone and PC.

Not only that, the Chinese government has been releasing positive signals to the market since early 2014. In January 2014, the Shanghai FTA Regulation document 32nd, the move was considered to have lifted the 13-year ban on the gaming machine market. January 2015, the State Council again issued to allow foreign-funded enterprises to engage in game entertainment equipment production and sales can be replicated to the whole country.

Compared with the previous game of the Android game box, PS4 and other games host performance and the use of experience is obviously more popular with users. In fact, Sony PS4 still has some advantages over Microsoft Xbox One, Nintendo Wii U and other games consoles.

A third-party research agency recently released statistics showing that 59% of Xbox 360 users chose PS4 when choosing next-generation hosts, while only 43% of PS3 users bought Xbox One when they chose next-generation hosts.

From market feedback, Microsoft Xbox One has been listed about 1.5, despite its continued introduction of exclusive games and promotional activities, but it has been hard to surpass Sony PS4 sales. The latest data released by Microsoft is the number of Xbox one global shipments of less than 10 million as of November 2014. For the Chinese market, Microsoft has not published the relevant data, but some insiders told Tencent technology its shipments are not higher than 100,000 units.

But the industry does not believe that the two sides in the global competition will continue to the Chinese market. "In the Chinese market, PS4 and Xbox are not rivals, but need to build a host market together," Cao Di, an analyst at the consultancy, told Tencent. Their overall competitors are mobile games and box games. ”

In the face of Microsoft's Xbox One, which is listed earlier than PS4 a few months ago, while PS4 's listing will add new players to the market, most industry insiders agree.

"The willingness of the two companies, who are weak in the Chinese market, to develop their markets together is stronger than competing with each other," he said. "The game industry says.

Need China to boost market confidence

In the industry, PlayStation Business is becoming the core business affecting the future development of Sony Company. Therefore, after opening the door in the Chinese market, how to cultivate this new market becomes an important indicator to evaluate the development of Sony.

Some insiders have for Tencent technology estimates said, "in accordance with China's three families now have 400 million families, of which 10% will buy game machine products, if the average sales price of 2000 yuan, is close to hundreds of billions of market, and this is a new market." ”

In fact, this is the signal Sony wants to send to the outside world. Sony said it would focus on four core areas such as the PlayStation gaming division, Sony movies, Sony Music and equipment operations, and hoped that by March 2018 its operating profit would be more than 500 billion yen (about 4.2 billion US dollars).

For the Chinese market, a channel to tell Tencent Technology, Sony selling PC business, but also its previous cultivation for several years of channels are also vacated.

Sony official reply Tencent Technology said, PS4 next sales channel will use its existing channel in China, as well as the electric business channel. This means that the gaming machine will make up for the above vacancy and be in close contact with the Xbox One in the store and the electric dealer channel.

But some insiders say Sony is so active in describing the development prospects of the Chinese market because it wants to influence investors and consolidate the results of its latest quarterly earnings.

Sony released its financial data for the third quarter of fiscal year 2014 and said it was more than expected to benefit from the selling of image sensors and PlayStation gaming devices.

Many factors influence the future of Chinese mainland market

In fact, the industry's judgment is not without root.

From the time point of view, for China's host game of the Ashes level players, it has been through parallel imports and other channels to buy related products; for Sony wants to attract the potential users of Chinese game consoles, it has mobile games or PC games supplemented by the PS4 purchase desire is not strong.

"Moreover, Shanghai SMG significant restructuring of the overall situation has been set, as the two main game host of the Chinese side of the hundred-Vision and the Oriental Pearl will be one", a deep versed in the cultural media industry insiders told Tencent Technology, "PS4 and the Xbox One or ' Teacher out of the same gate ', so both sides can not be in the Chinese market as fierce as the world markets. ”

Not only that, since Xbox One was released, developers have shown no obvious incentive to host games. There are game developers told Tencent Technology, the current domestic game market mobile phone game is still in the ascendant, and host games because of the high cost of development, risk is not developers and capital bullish. From the list of listed games published by Microsoft and Sony, the number of its works is not much, and it shows the characteristics of low age.

But compared to Xbox One, the game industry says that because the version it offers is limited to network access, there is no more demand for game discs. "In the early days of the market reaction, it would theoretically outperform the country's Xbox One sales dilemma," he said. ”

On the "Lock Zone" issue, Sony's official response is "in line with national regulations, the premise of efforts to provide consumers in the mainland of the global unified PlayStation Hardware Products", and the listing statement also stressed PS4 for the Chinese version.

That means Sony may have to keep a low profile in the Chinese market and not be able to pull a big distance from the Xbox One.