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Nintendo To Sell Old Consoles To China?

Posted by timothy on from the one-billion-plus dept.

drfishy writes "An interview with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata on IGN hints at the possibility of Nintendo entering the Chinese market with their products soon. The most curious part of the interview is that Satoru Iwata says Nintendo is considering releasing older generation hardware to combat piracy, could this mean the big N is going to start making Super Nintendos again? Will there be new games? How would this fight piracy?"

10 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Most Chinese DO have TVs by grainofsand · · Score: 5, Informative

    Having lived in China for three years, I can assure you almost every Chinese household has a TV. Sets are cheap with a domestic 29-inch selling for around $US90.

    A Hong Kong-based market research firm recently suggested television set penetration was around 92 percent on the mainland, compared with 42 percent for refrigerators!

    All of the major consoles (inc XBox) are available in China as "grey imports". A PS2 sells for about US$200 and an XBox for about $US300. Pirate games galore and easily available for around $US2.50.

    --
    A dream is good. A plan is better.
    1. Re:Most Chinese DO have TVs by 56 · · Score: 2, Informative
      China has:

      400,000,000 Televisions:

      and

      1,284,303,705 People

      Source: The CIA World Factbook 2002

    2. Re:Most Chinese DO have TVs by grainofsand · · Score: 2, Informative

      1.3 billion divided by three (the size of the average Chinese family given the one-child policy) is roughly 400 million.

      TV set penetration is about 95% on the mainland. Per household NOT per person.

      --
      A dream is good. A plan is better.
    3. Re:Most Chinese DO have TVs by FooBarWidget · · Score: 3, Informative

      That doesn't mean most Chinese don't have a TV. A household as a whole (2 parents, 1 child, maybe 2 grandparents) can have 1 TV, which is more than enough.

  2. Re:"Fighting" piracy by Huogo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Gamecube uses a propritary disk, I don't see how you could easily copy it. It uses a mini 1.5 GB dvd type thing. I don't know anyone that can copy those, but I do know it is VERY possible to get blank cartridges, some hardware at radio shack, and some parts from a SNES and make your own carts.

  3. Re:Cartridges by mjolner · · Score: 5, Informative

    The head of Microsoft's China operations actually suggested the same thing to Microsoft - sell older versions for _alot_ cheaper. Alot cheaper is often what to what people in the developing world be willing, and able, to pay for software. She figured it would create mind-space and make people used to buying legit copies. Yeah, she was fired. I have seen alot of NES-compatible game systems sold in down-scale Chinese apartment stores, and Nintendo probably figures that there is a buck to be made by going in and competing with these fly-by-night manufacturers. Makes sense to me.

  4. Wait just a goddamned minute. by Rimbo · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was in China in September, and I saw everything there. PS2's, XBoxes, GameCubes, GameBoy Advances, and all of the games.

    What's this about -entering- the Chinese market again?

    As far as I can see, they're already there.

    Somehow I don't think that their sales will increase very much as a result of this...

    1. Re:Wait just a goddamned minute. by taweili · · Score: 2, Informative

      The game consoles you saw in China are not officially released in China. Check out the games for PS2. They are either Japanese or English. None of the games is in Chinese. These machines carried back to China from oversea visits and the titles are pirated in China.

  5. Re:how do you fight piracy with this? by vasqzr · · Score: 2, Informative


    Well, go over to FuncoLand and buy one!

    Use the store locator, they've been selling and buying used systems and games for quite a while.

    Once in a while I'll buy an older system and a few games, then discover they weren't as fun as I remembered.

    It's either that or start finding ROM's and emulators.

  6. Re:Commodore 64s in China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    There is a company manufacturing a computer called a Commodore 64 for the Asian market, or at least was up until about a year ago.

    Thing is, it wasn't a C-64. It was a 486-class PC in a WebTV-ish case with a Commodore 64 emulator and some .d64 images installed.

    It was also sold under the name Web-IT 64.