Speaking only of current generation consoles (but this also applies to older ones, in some ways), both Microsoft and Sony officially launched the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in China, and Nintendo is about to launch the Switch. Why? Simply because virtually nobody in China buys gaming consoles through official channels and/or officially licensed models. Are official sales numbers for gaming consoles in China high? No, they are downright abysmal, actually. The console gaming market in China is a perfect example of the dichotomy between the "official" and the "real."Īre there gaming consoles in China? Yes, by the millions, I estimate. This is one of the biggest misconceptions most people have about gaming in China, and no matter how much is written on the subject, confusion and misinformation are still rampant. "Even though China is by many metrics the biggest gaming market in the world, some outdated and downright wrong notions still prevail" Hopefully I'll be able to clear at least some of these misconceptions here, based on my own experience mostly, but also relevant data and sources.
In particular for the gaming industry, even though China is by many metrics the biggest gaming market in the world, some outdated and/or downright wrong notions still prevail. Having lived in China for the most part of the last 11 years of my life, not a day goes by without reading some random international news article that wrongfully reports about China. This (among many other reasons, which I won't get into here) leads to China existing in almost two parallel realities: the official one based on data, numbers and policies, and the practical reality that is actually lived in the country (the correlation between the two is not always as linear as one could assume). Analysts and "China observers" constantly report and comment about China, more often than not based on "official sources and data" but little to no real contact on the ground. In our review, Twinfinite gave Umbrella Corps a rating of 2.5.5, in which we criticized the game for its “inconsistent frame rate, awkward animations sticky cover mechanics”.Ĭustomer reviews on Steam fare little better, with 364 negative reviews featured on the game’s store page.No matter how much China's economy grows and how much media exposure it gets from around the globe, the country is still shrouded by a thick layer of mystery and misconceptions that generate confusion in the eyes of those looking in from the outside. Now, the undisclosed numbers on consoles might be a little more optimistic for all we know, but this still represents an incredibly poor start for a multiplayer-centric game, though likely tied to the fact that Umbrella Corps really isn’t very good. In fact, as of the time of writing, a mere 116 people are currently playing Umbrella Corps on Steam. It may have launched only this Tuesday, but the latest title in the Resident Evil franchise, Umbrella Corps, already suffers from a severely low player count in its online servers on PC, at least if the statistics from Steam are anything to go by.Īccording to SteamCharts, a site which continually analyses player numbers on the digital distribution platform, the multiplayer shooter game reached an all-time peak of just 428 players on Steam since it’s release this week.