China piracy boycott update: Sony and Microsoft speak
Hardware wary of China - The players give their side
Following our story that Microsoft was not going to release the Xbox in China, all the major players have spoken out about piracy fears within the region.
Microsoft has stated that it might one day release the Xbox in China, but that happening in the short to medium term seems doubtful. "The more hardware we sell," says Nintendo spokeswoman Yasuhiro Minagawa, "the more copied software becomes available.” This is a something of a cop-out, as all Microsoft has been doing of late, aside from promoting Windows XP, (incidentally copied and available before release in China) is spending half a billion dollars on marketing the Xbox. “The majority of Famicom consoles sold in China were fake," continued Minagawa. "One of the original pirates sued another company for making different fakes. That's the kind of situation we're always facing in China."
Surprising as it might sound, the PlayStation 2 has never been released to the Chinese market. "We think it's important to do business where business itself is actually possible," says Kenichi Fukunaga, spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment Japan. "We're thinking about selling to Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea, but we have to make sure illegal copies won't go around."
More as we get it…
Microsoft has stated that it might one day release the Xbox in China, but that happening in the short to medium term seems doubtful. "The more hardware we sell," says Nintendo spokeswoman Yasuhiro Minagawa, "the more copied software becomes available.” This is a something of a cop-out, as all Microsoft has been doing of late, aside from promoting Windows XP, (incidentally copied and available before release in China) is spending half a billion dollars on marketing the Xbox. “The majority of Famicom consoles sold in China were fake," continued Minagawa. "One of the original pirates sued another company for making different fakes. That's the kind of situation we're always facing in China."
Surprising as it might sound, the PlayStation 2 has never been released to the Chinese market. "We think it's important to do business where business itself is actually possible," says Kenichi Fukunaga, spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment Japan. "We're thinking about selling to Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea, but we have to make sure illegal copies won't go around."
More as we get it…
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