14 DAY TRIAL // The PlayStation 4 was supposed to be launched on the Chinese market on January 11, but the team at Sony in charge of it announced that it was implementing an indefinite delay because of various factors that were not named.
The Computer Entertainment division in the country has not offered more information, but a report from Reuters claims that the biggest issue at the moment is represented by prolonged negotiations with the Chinese authorities, although the exact subjects have not been revealed.
Sony will probably announce a new date soon, once it knows exactly what it has to do in order to actually get the PlayStation 4 in stores.
The problem might be linked to the fact that the company wants to launch 30 games as soon as possible and some of them might feature content that the Chinese authorities want to censor, a measure that might require more time to implement.
A similar problem affected the Xbox One from Microsoft just before it was set to launch in China.
At the moment, the plan is to sell the PlayStation 4 for the price of 2,899 RMB, which is about 467 dollars (368 Euro).
The rival Xbox One is sold on the same market for 3,699 RMB, which is about 569 dollars (472 Euro) and 10 video games are also offered to gamers.
Microsoft has not offered clear details about its sales numbers, but unofficial info says that after an initial burst of enthusiasm Chinese gamers seem to be uninterested in the device.
China could become a major market in the coming years
Home consoles were banned in China for more than a decade and most players in the country are now more accustomed to getting their gaming fix on either the PC or on mobile devices.
This means that Microsoft and Sony will face an uphill struggle to make the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 solid sales hits.
The two companies also need to work closely with the Communist government to make sure that all gaming content they launch on the Chinese market is authorized and to clear all the applications they plan to launch.
At the moment, the PlayStation 4 has gone over the 18 million worldwide sales mark and Microsoft claims that the Xbox One has been building up momentum in the past few months.
