Nintendo Switch To Officially Launch In China Next Week

Games are only $42 in China?

Surprised Blizzard hasn't announced any titles for Switch China...

Hopefully Nintendo takes over the Chinese gaming market, it would be great to see the Switch race over the 100 million consoles sold line.

Am I the only person who think it would be cool if Nintendo brought back the iQue brand name again?

@Aeleron0X
IQue still exists, but they have transitioned away from launching hardware in China and is now Nintendo's Chinese localization team. They are responsible for the Chinese translations of all 1st party Switch games.

Nice, I hope they also release some titles with English language via thr eShop. I still have waaaaay too much money on my Chinese Bank account

Can’t say I’m really happy about this. We saw what Blizzard did to save face with the cruel Chinese government because they didn’t want to lose money in the Chinese market. Don’t want China to have any wrongful influence over Nintendo’s decisions sometime in the future.

@westman98 Ah I didn't know that. Thanks for telling me

Hope this will further improve the relations between the Chinese and Japanese people.

@GetShulked
Nintendo knows very well what is happening. They know the market and they know the risks, they wont let China influence anything (outside of china at least) for them I guarantee.

@PBandSmelly I like that you can guarantee something for a completely different entity

@GetShulked Nintendo isn't entering the Chinese market. Tencent is. Which is a Chinese company (that indeed owns a small part of Blizzard, a huge part of Epic and Riot Games (League of Legends) entirely) They are going to sell the Switch on Nintendo's behalf. And that is a big difference since Nintendo isn't directly connected to the Chinese government.

It would only become a problem if Tencent would buy Nintendo. But for that Nintendo has protections in place, so that won't happen.

As said before, it will not have a huge impact on sales, as switch is already established and all the games can be bought retail or through eshop. I dont know why NL has to report this over and over again. Bought FF7/FF8 in a local store for 280cny on monday which is a fair price. Sorry if i am trying to break the news.

@GetShulked Just like America getting to force censorship on all English versions of games for the last forever?

It seems like the Switch secured ~50,000 preorders on jd.com, a popular Chinese retailer.

It's an impressive Day 1 preorder figure from a single retailer, especially given that the Switch is literally launching with just a single major localized game (NSMBU DX) and has been readily available on the Chinese grey market since March 2017.

299 RMB sounds pretty good for first party games. Usually they run 320-400 currently when coming from Hong Kong, US, or Japan.

Now China has another way to punish you if your social score drops.....confiscate your switch. Furk China.

@RainbowGazelle uhh... lol... the censorship you are trying to compare doesn't even make sense.

Comparing America and Chinese Censorship is like trying to say an apple looks exactly like a goat.

It doesn't even go in the same sentence, thats the gap between Chinese censorship and American.

This is good and bad.

If Nintendo starts getting ridiculous numbers in sales over in China it'll put Nintendo under the thumb of the Chinese government.

I mean think... if in 10 years time around 30% of Nintendo's next console sales are from China, then Nintendo would try very hard to maintain that.

That includes giving the little plumber a hammer and sickle and renaming him chairman Mario.

The good in this is that China hates Sony for whatever reason and Sony have been unable to break into that market despite their repeated efforts. If Nintendo does well there it'll make Sony practically foam at the mouth with annoyance.

Also Sony could pull a Sony and try to emulate everything Nintendo does (like they haven't already lol..) then fall flat on their face because of it. If that does happen Sony are already bleedy mobile money faster than the Ps4 can bring it in.

I like the idea of buying cheaper game carts while here in Shanghai, and of having games available from Chinese studios. Would like to see releases like counter strike, 地下城与勇士 (dungeon fighter online), or other internet cafe staples with some local play as a selling point. If the Chinese titles stick to sims like 中国式家长 (Chinese Parents) or 完美的一天 (A perfect day) as seen in that press picture, I'm not convinced it will perform.

Bet we won't get any Winnie The Pooh games anytime soon over there.

This is not a negative thing. If more people in China are buying consoles, that’s a net positive for everyone in the world who wants consoles to succeed. If China doesn’t approve of a game, they just won’t sell it in the mainland.

@Razer
I liked your first comment but your second comment is full of false info and heavy Bias, Sony has been selling PS4s in China for a good while now.

Like did Sony fucking kill your family or something?

As others have said, I'm concerned about the long term effect of this on Nintendo. Not only will it absolutely affect the content of Nintendo games and characters, but typically when Tencent, and most Chinese pseudo-government "business" gets their hooks into a company they seek to control/buy more and more of it to exert more and more control over it.

@NotTelevision Not at all true. There's a very long history of Western, and in particular, Western entertainment businesses altering, modifying, or outright eliminating content in order to reach the large market of a dictatorial and restrictive government. Presently Hollywood is doing that right and left for China, and is a key reason movies stopped being a social commentary and more and more have picked up themes, subtly or overtly, that remake the messages of traditional Chinese storytelling in a Western skin. Additionally more and more ownership of all things Hollywood is Chinese (right down to the largest US theater chain, being 100% Chinese owned now - if media makes reality, then China is making the West's reality now.) Going back three quarters of a century the same history repeated, Hollywood fawned all over the demands of the Nazi government, editing, censoring, removing or downplaying Jewish content/characters/heroes, and other changes, etc to suit the damands of the Nazis, because German occupied territory was a huge market for them even at the time.

Global business, even nearly a century ago, tends to censor and cow to any authoritarian roadblock if it means more marketshare. Nintendo entering China signals the inevitability of them censoring, altering, and modifying their content, globally, to suit the whims of the government there and make reaching that large market as smooth as possible. Great for Nintendo investors. Bad for Nintendo customers and creators.

@AnnoyingFrenzy A small price to pay for living in a thriving dictatorship.

@NEStalgia As far as Hollywood being a vehicle for social commentary, I thought that mostly went away in the late 70s with the arrival of Star Wars. Sure there were your outlier films here and there but the 80s and 90s were mostly about escapism. I actually thought the Marvel movies which were partially geared toward a Chinese audience, had more social commentary than the 90s superhero flicks, but that could just be my interpretation. Then of course you have a recent film like Joker, definitely not made for a Chinese audience but everyone has seen it anyway, that is full of commentary but the rather adolescent type in my opinion.

I’m just saying that the more console gamers there are in the world, the better off we all are. If Nintendo wants to put microtransaction riddled nonesense in their games like Tencent, than that’s their choice but I think as long as sales are good than that won’t happen.

I just think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves by indulging in these hyperbolic scenerios that may or may not occur. PlayStation and XBox have been in China a while now, and nothing drastic when it comes to censorship has yet occurred.

Most analysts are somewhat doubtful about Nintendo making much money in China in this partnership with Tencent because of the restriction on game approvals by regulators in China, and because mobile and PC games dominate the market and consoles are minimal there. Also the Switch is already widely available in China through the grey market. But I have a feeling that this Nintendo-Tencent partnership is going to surprise people and it will do a lot to popularize the Switch and Nintendo games in China. I am very encouraged by what Ubisoft is already planning to release in China.

@Razer The point still stands. It's one country dictating what is acceptable for another.

@NotTelevision You're right about Star Wars' effect, sure. Though it was starting to reverse to a degree. But the trend of courting the Chinese market at any cost has been going on for the past 15 years or more. And the Marvel movies and others surely have a social commentary - but if you notice it's along the messaging lines promoted by China, and consistent with traditional Chinese storytelling (several of the stories are quite literally repackaged traditional Chinese legends.) It's all very "made for the market."

The more console gamers the better so long as the product itself doesn't have to be edited to get through the barrier government surrounding the gamers. International business has no problem reducing everything to the lowest common denominator in the quest for more profits. In this case it means holding their products throughout the world to the standards of the demands of the restrictive government of China to ensure the most cost effective reach to that investor-desirable Chinese market. Pursuing the Chinese market means pleasing the Chinese government. Pleasing the Chinese government means reducing the product until it meets their goals for approval. Not regionally, but globally, because that's just more cost effective (See also TMS #FE getting the US censored version in Japan because it's just more cost effective to give everyone the lowest common denominator.) Business goes with cheap. Cheap means selling one version that meets the tightest requirements. Thus doing business in China means what's available to the whole world becomes, effectively, governed by China's rules.

As @Yorumi said, Sony has been infamously censoring tremendously. People are quick to blame "SJWs" in the US, but more than a little of that change almost certainly is for the business sensibilities of doing business in China. XBox, itself, doesn't produce much content overall, or at least so far has not, so they kind of scathe past it. Forza is inoffensive, Gears and Crackdown are inoffensive action fare. They don't publish much themselves the way Sony and Nintendo do. And Sony's already fallen into the trap.

To be fair, the problem isn't wholly China itself with this. It's the fact that international business, can, has, and will always be willing to restrict the product as far as is necessary to sell to the most restrictive market so long as it's big enough. China just happens to be that big restrictive/authoritarian market at present, and it means the businesses doing business there there inevitably effectively help the Chinese government force it's restrictive policies on the world in exchange for a yuan or two.

Nintendo is a capitalist company and at the end of the day all they care about is maximizing their profits. Going into the Chinese market in all likelihood is going to be very good for their profits since China has an enormous population and their economy is one of the fastest growing and has been for decades. I fear that there is a possibility that the Chinese government starts having a perverse affect like they did with Blizzard and sadly there’s nothing that can be done so long as Nintendo is solely focused on profit maximization.

@Aeleron0X
interesting idea. unrealistic, but interesting.
maybe, a new for a future nintendo console. that would be hella dope

@RainbowGazelle
Are you seriously comparing the removal of anime tiddies to human rights violations??
I do not like censorship, but that is a terrible false equivalency.

Nintendo's big first party developed titles are extremely family friendly and feature no gore, sexual content, nudity, real or simulated gambling, alcohol, smoking, crude language, or socio-political commentary.

I dont think ya'll need to worry all that much about the censorship of Nintendo games.

I'm steering WAY away from this thread before I get banned.

This is a positive for Nintendo, as it will boost sales and profits - and that's all that matters.

I wonder how it will do in the land of bootlegs?

@GetShulked No, I'm saying it's interesting to me to see Americans worried that their games in future will be changed to suit the Chinese market, when Europe has put up with that from America since games began.

Also, side note: There's been plenty more censorship than just "removing anime tiddies".

I'm sorry, but when if ever has Nintendo made a game that would be remotely controversial in China? They arent going to start cowing to government because there is nothing to censor. I think people are mistaking Nintendo for the third party publishers who might want to get in on this. Basically every Nintendo game ever made could pass Chinese Cert as is.

@Big-Pepsi nah they burned me on the ps vita, then they took Ghostbusters (one of my favourite childhood movies) and doodooed all over it, then they burned me on the ps1 classic.

Yeah... I'm not a fan... not at all.