Niko News Roundup: Chinese Gamers Spend 8 Hours per Day on Smartphones

Sony may be preparing to launch the PS4 in China. The company announced formation of a department, led by company veteran Soeda Takehito, to focus SCE’s efforts on the Chinese markets. SCE is the division of Sony that handles PlayStation products.

An article on Gamelook.com says that the first 60 seconds of gameplay are the most critical for F2P mobile games. On average 60-80% of players will abandon the game after one minute if they do not like the gameplay or design. The top 5 reasons why players will abandon games after the first try (according to the article):

Monetization comes out too early, or too overwhelming (70%)
Bad difficulty/output balance (45%)
Resources consumed too fast (34%)
Bad newbie instructions (31%)
Lack of a reward system (28%)

Chinese smartphone owners spend approximately eight hours a day now looking at electronic screens every single day. According to a People Daily article, “Chinese audiences have increasingly formed a multiscreen lifestyle — they not only use other devices when watching TV, some of them have even started to shift away from TV to watch television content on mobile phones and tablets.”

We suspect that mobile games and online video are filling the gap as Chinese TV viewers opt for a multiscreen experience during their TV viewing times.

Kingsoft, a major Chinese online game operator and software company publicly listed in Hong Kong, is now seeking a US listing for its mobile subsidiary.