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China Reviewing Game Consoles Ban
jones_supa writes "The Chinese government is discussing whether to lift its 12-year ban on game consoles which was established due to fear of harming the physical and mental development of the young. Even during this period consoles have been sold illegally and things like Kinect can be sold for other purposes such as medical treatment and education. Major game console vendors across the world made several attempts but failed to find a way to enter the Chinese mainland market officially, even though they have solid manufacturing bases there. 'We are reviewing the policy and have conducted some surveys and held discussions with other ministries on the possibility of opening up the game console market,' a source from the Ministry of Culture, who asked not to be named, said."
You're one of the few enemies we can still put into our video games without any real backlash. If you start exerting the kind of leverage over our console makers and developers that you exert over our movie studios, then all we're going to be left with are North Korea, Iran, and a few of them stan countries. And even the stan countries are starting to bitch.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
PC games are common in China for this reason. There is no point in banning consoles.
Or so I heard on NPR this morning. They're probably salivating at the prospects right now.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Even for China, this doesn't make much sense nowadays. PCs and smartphones can be (side) loaded with games similar to those found in consoles.
What? If you did that the US empire would crack down on you? Label you as some unpatriotic terrorist? Disregard the First Amendment?
Well, there's your proof that the US is evil.
I doubt the government will label you anything, but most Americans won't buy your game.
China only likes NK as they don't want to deal with them falling and having to deal with all people coming over the boarder.
Also they are tell NK to back off on the nuke tests.
I m pretty sure my sister brought 2 DS (on two different trip) from china, the first one of those being gifted to her by our cousin (someone living in china). Second one was pretty easy to find too. I actually had no idea that this ban was in place Maybe they're just reviewing it because the law is unenforceable ?
I currently live in Beijing. I can have a new console in my living room in less than a half an hour. They're for sale in every major market here. And not really marked up much more than the US price. It was a piece of cake to get a 220V power supply for the Wii when we moved. I think I got it for 40 kuai (about $6) Sure, they'd sell a ton more of them if I could go to Gomez or Sunning..... but the "ban" is surely not keeping them out. Like most regulations here... not enforced at all... or selectively at best.
I was visiting Shenzen in Summer 2007 when it was still quite difficult to find a Wii on the shelf back in the USA. I saw them for sale at all of the computer/electronics markets. For about the same price as back home, they were chipped and came with any 10 games.
Aren't they also having trouble filling vacancies toiling in the iFactories? Consider it as training.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If they're worried about stunting the emotional development of their youth, have they banned Atlas Shrugged yet?
they are allowed to create games and "probably" create console as well but not allowed to sell it in their own country ??? wow ???
You're taking "bad for young minds" literally. To the Chinese government, that means anything that might lead to less pliable, diligent citizens.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
They are realizing that they need drone pilots and our gamers are the best in the biz. So they too want to get some of that training for their current and future drone pilots.
China only likes NK as they don't want to deal with them falling and having to deal with all people coming over the boarder.
I have read a number of times that all of the surrounding governments are terrified that North Korea will collapse. Basically they are all concerned about having to deal with 24 million starving North Koreans.
The US is an information/service economy, physical capacity is irrelevant for anything other than health and being sexually attractive, which you'd think were major until you realize just how lazy people are now.
Not to mention from what I've seen there just seems to be collectively lowered standards. I suppose it depends on which social strata you're in. This might be somewhat reversed by the trend toward nanny-statism which is slowly making being unhealthy illegal. Pretty soon we'll be off of the metaphorical hamster wheels of workaday existence and onto real, compulsory hamster wheels. Considering that's the way people vote they deserve it.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit