New Pokémon Snap Is The First Official Pokémon Release In China Since 2000

Hang on, why did China ban the production, import, and sales of video games?

What do you make of New Pokémon Snap launching in China?

Me : Well, i will get the already available USA version. Why should i get the Chinese version?

@Lightsiyd My question is, why did china ban nintendo consoles?

I mean.. they believe Taiwan is their territory, so they should be celebrating that flag with the pointy sun… but yeah China is very sensitive about these topics which kind of shows how much sense it all makes to remove a pointy sun from a videogame ☀️.

It could be that that the original icons, especially the Profile Icon, resembles the Taiwan or Kuomintang Emblems a bit too strongly.

I understand it’s China and their whole shtick is “China good, rest of world bad”, but this sentence is just truly terrifying to me for some reason.

@Lightsiyd It was technically not banned, since you could easily find import consoles if you know where to look. I grew up in China back in the day, and consoles never took off since there is a wide piracy problem plus government red tape and low average income back then, which meant that most console manufacturers simply didn't bother entering the country.

While Famiclones were popular up until the late 90s, the absence of later consoles meant that most gamers moved on to PC, where piracy is much easier, along with mods, emulators, and translation patches etc.

@AccessibleDaydream That's just speculation. The KMT was the previously political party that ruled mainland China, and one can easily go to Nanjing and visit the Mausoleum of Sun Yat Sen, founder of the KMT, which is adorned with the same symbols.

Then again, different symbols can be interpreted differently in different countries. Remember the Rising Sun emblem in Honda's stage in SF2? Many Chinese and Koreans view it as symbols of Japanese militarism in WW2 which is still a controversial issue in these countries, hence why it was removed in later games.

Man I had no idea Chinese releases for the Switch were still so much more staggered even from the Chinese launch of the system. I thought by now they had gotten a more consistent release schedule for games on the system, but I guess the government still has their approvement policies making the games take forever to come out. I wonder what games by now are officially available if they are still very staggered

@ferryb001 hahaha, for real. XD

China's censorship really is ridiculous sometimes. There have to be millions of pieces of art and media with pointy suns in them. The sheer pettiness of it is almost comical.

Didn't know that!

Absolutely hideous move. So if ccp didnt want, let's say, Norway or France in Nintendo games, would Nintendo erase anything that could be linked to these countries because they want to enter the market?

I remember when Pokemon Sun and Moon were first announced, pretty much the only thing that was revealed about them to begin with was that they were the first games in the series to be playable in Chinese. Was that done purely for the benefit of Chinese speakers living outside of China, then?

I wonder why they released this as New Pokemon Snap since the original N64 game was never released in China. It would be more appropriate to title it “Pokemon Snap”. Also, I feel sad that the original Gen 1 games (Along with Gen 2-6) were never officially released in China. Chinese gamers are experiencing the original games via the Let’s Go versions which in my opinion is nowhere as good as the original Red and Blue versions. At least give them either the digital Gen 1 or Gen 3 remakes. Let’s Go is a terrible way to introduce gamers to the original Pokemon games.

@Dogorilla Every mainline Pokemon games since Sun and Moon has been formally translated to Chinese (Traditional), to cater to their official launches in Taiwan and Hong Kong regions, which have sizeable populations and also having their own set of content policies and rating system differing from Mainland China (though they are technically of the same country, but I wont dwell into that). They have also been including Simplified Chinese in these games, to prepare for the launch in Mainland China if ever the government loosen the rules.

@Don It's fine, gamers in China mostly experienced the GB games via pirated and imported copies back in the day, as well as the anime and manga. Pretty nuch

@Sourcecode What an ignorant comment. All countries have their good and bad, and may I point out 4/5 of the human population live in developing countries where basic necessities aren't readily available?

If you're using video game censorship as a sole measurement of a country, may I remind you that even developed countries like Australia and Germany regularly censor their game even as of today? NSDAP flags are removed Wolfenstein and other WW2 games in Germany, while Australia bans games that show even minor reference to drug usage or loli like Blade Runner or Deathsmiles?

@Princess_Lilly Well considering that the Switch is region free and one can easily import the original copies, while the change is only limited to the Chinese version, it's a non-issue. If Nintendo pulled a Fire Emblem Fates instead and assumed the the rest of the world abides by the USA's views on sex, then it'd be more of a problem.

They had to edit pokemon? Dang, I say to each their own about censorship but wow that’s um…that’s intense if the sun bothers you.

@Sun_wukong Ah that makes sense, thanks!