Chinese Game Development To Increase

According to a report in Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun major video game makers are increasing the number of their Chinese development projects due to increasing demand in the country. This growth is in contrast to the Japanese market which has been slowly shrinking since 1997. The newspaper cites moves such as Square Enix senior vice president Keiji Honda being transferred to the company’s Shanghai office, amidst plans to hire local software engineers. It also mentions the launch of Nintendo’s custom built iQue console, which the company also intends to support with locally produced titles – as does Sony in the wake of their recent PlayStation 2 launch. All these companies though will face the problem of piracy endemic to the country as well as the fact that most popular games titles in China are online PC role-playing games. Indeed US research agency International Data Corp estimates that the country had 13.12 million online games players in 2002, up 56% from 2002. Source: Dow Jones Newswires