Good news for Consoles in China
For those of you that don't know, China banned foreign games consoles back in 2000. This decision was because the government thought that gaming was bad for mental health or some crap like that despite allowing PC gaming and more recently mobile gaming to flourish in the country.
In 2014 they lifted the ban and created a trial period where they would allow games consoles to be made within the Shangai free trade zone to be distributed across China, subject to standard local inspections on multimedia goods.
Basically this was an experiment to see how it would work with games consoles being sold in China and to see what regulations would need to be changed. An official statement at the time said that this was part of China's exploration of "reform and opening". There had been a number of other economic reforms taking place at the time and this was one of them.
Yesterday, the government issued a statement saying the trial was a success and that it was now over and it is officially ok for console makers to manufacturer and sell their goods anywhere in China. All new regulations have now been put into place and things are finally moving forward. It's unsure how much this will affect new game approvals as those still take time due to the censorship laws in China but this means that all console makers now have the opportunity to enter the country, manufacturer their goods there and sell them anywhere in China.
Sony said, This is great news for us, Sony Computer Entertainment remains committed to the console business in China.".
Microsoft and Nintendo did not comment.