Xbox One Launched on Sept. 29th in China

The Xbox One launched September 29 after a one-week delay from the planned launch date in China. Initial reaction is positive but many gamers are waiting to see which of the 70 games in the pipeline for launch will actually make it to market. 10 games, including 2 free titles, were available as of the launch date. Some say that the expensive price, slightly higher than international prices, will be the biggest barrier to success. However, in our opinion the price is not the issue as long as the content is available for hardcore gamers to play.

Perfect World Restructuring

Perfect World, a leading Chinese publicly-traded online game operator, is restructuring the company. 17173.com reported that Perfect World (known as “Wanmei” in Chinese) is spinning off studios, forming an independent mobile game development company, and has changed some business unit names. One such change was from Zu Long Studio to Zu Long Entertainment Technology. Perfect World got the attention of investment analysts prior to its IPO by declaring that its Angelica development engine would speed up the launch of in-house developed PC online games. Whether or not that actually happened is unclear, but Perfect World has had a number of hit PC online titles and has the greatest percentage of revenue derived overseas among all the publicly traded online game operators, at roughly 25%.

Apple’s iPhone 6 Coming to China

Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus will be released in China on October 17th, according to the company. Apple mobile devices are very popular in China but spending by Android device gamers has increased in recent months, thereby reducing the dominance of the iOS platform for revenue generation.

Singapore to Continue Raising Home Broadband Penetration Rate

Singapore has an extremely high home broadband penetration rate at greater than 80%, yet the government is doing even more to bring the Internet to the people by extending it to more than 8,000 low-income households along with a basic computing device for the usage period of 4 years. The household must earn less than SGD $1,900 per month and a basic computing device could be a tablet or simple computer. The money is coming from the Digital Inclusion Fund.

Potential Merger of BesTV + Oriental Pearl

Here is a news item posted in the Marbridge Daily that supports Niko’s commentary last week on the potential merger of BesTV and Oriental Pearl Culture Development. The new information is that newly-public Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) could strategically invest in the merged entity. This is one to watch as it directly impacts both Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation:

“According to an investor in Chinese media conglomerate Shanghai Media Group (SMG), e-commerce giant Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) will make an RMB 9-digit strategic investment in an unnamed publicly traded media company. The target of Alibaba’s investment will reportedly be a new media conglomerate formed through the merger of SMG subsidiaries BesTV New Media (600637.SH) and Shanghai Oriental Pearl (600832.SH).”