The communist nation's embrace of video games is in part a censorship strategy.
A man plays a Sony PlayStation 4 in Shanghai in March. The Chinese government has lifted restrictions on selling and manufacturing video games in the country.
China's restrictions on foreign tech business and its censorship of material perceived as a threat to its culture led the communist nation to ban video game consoles more than a decade ago.
And while its recent move to scrap that embargo signals a willingness to embrace more Western markets, it also hints at a recognition that such gaming systems may be easier to monitor than the broader online universe.
Following the ban's enactment in 2000 and a partial easing of it last year, companies like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will now be free to manufacture and sell video game consoles anywhere in the emerging economic superpower, The Wall Street Journal reports. The move by China's Ministry of Culture to lift the ban shows the government recognizes the increasing consumer demands of the nation's growing middle class and sees the benefit of being willing to extend more access to Western consumer goods, says Sarah Cook, a senior research analyst for East Asia at watchdog organization Freedom House .
But Chinese consumers have used mobile phones and PCs to get their video game fix while restrictions on TV-based consoles like Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation were in place, so Beijing also likely hopes to diminish interest in the global Internet by embracing the sale of consoles, she says.
"The authorities for some reason decided that video game consoles aren't as detrimental to youth or any other interest they were trying to protect as they had thought," Cook says. "It could also reflect their general wariness of people turning to online resources or looking for ways to get around government restrictions, which could potentially bring them into contact with information the government fears even more."
The Chinese government last year allowed limited manufacturing of video game consoles within the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, an 11-square-mile area that's frequented by many international business travelers.
Companies like Microsoft will have to reboot demand for consoles and TV gaming that has waned in China since the ban on consoles was instituted, and after which many Chinese consumers "focused on games on their mobile devices," says Brian Blau, a research director who focuses on consumer technologies at market research firm Gartner.
And though the opening of the video game market is an opportunity for tech companies that badly want a greater presence in China's growing economy, it is unclear whether the communist nation's restrictions on Web access or media will allow such businesses to grow, Cook says.
The content of video games produced for consoles, for example, reportedly will still be subject to government censorship.
"The question that comes to mind is whether foreign companies would now be under more pressure to alter the content of console games," Cook says.
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