PlayStation China Releases New PS5 Bundles, as Console Market Continues to Grow in the Country
With a very matured mobile gaming market, China's demand for console gaming continues to grow.
PlayStation China is promoting a new PS5 bundle that includes in-game content for “Genshin Impact” (the game itself is free-to-play).
Price is approx. USD$507 (¥3,599RMB).
The bundle will be available on January 26, right before the Chinese New Year holidays.
Another bundle was made available recently that includes the Chinese edition of “The King of Fighters 15” game, plus 2 DualSense controllers. This physical edition of the game is exclusive to China (different cover from other regions, and includes DLC), and published by Gamepoch.
-Regardless of the implementation of new regulations for gaming in China and/or incremental restrictions, it's clear that the console market in China is not only growing, but particularly trending up. Sony and Nintendo in particular continue to invest in marketing for their respective consoles in the country (more so than Microsoft with the Xbox brand).
-This is happening as it benefits from the soured perception and optics created by already existing regulations on mobile/online games, and the continuous incertitude created by recent events on the regulatory side (it now seems the recent draft might be about to be completely erased, but it is not conclusive yet).
-While Genshin Impact in particular can't be played offline, consoles traditionally offer a vast amount of games that can be enjoyed in single-player or as local multiplayer experiences - thus, unaffected by most restrictions targeting many mobile games in China.
-Consumers in China are generally aware of the effects of regulations in gaming - their impact often generates news headlines in the country.
While the console market is still a niche in China (compared to mobile), it is a burgeoning market filled with opportunities.
-Important to notice that although Sony/PlayStation promotes and sells its officially licensed models of the PS5 in China, a vast amount of console hardware sales still happens on the "grey market", with imported international region-free models being widely available at competitive pricing in most major e-commerce platforms.
