China finally lifts 15 year ban on sale of games consoles

Did you know that the sale of games consoles has been banned in China for over 15 years? That's 1.3 billion people who just can't get their hands on a PlayStation, despite the fact that most of the systems were made there!

The ban was started in 2000 because the authorities decided that video games had a negative effect on the minds of developinf children in particular. They were wary of letting youngsters spend too much time in these unreal 3D worlds and took the major step of instituting a full-ban of systems.

Despite these efforts, the gaming sector in China is the largest in the world, worth about $6billion anually. Many of those games are played on PC or in arcades, a significant shift from the way the industry works in the rest of the world.

But things are about to change, as Ministry of Culture has decided to allow the sale of consoles once more, after a pilot program which eased the ban in one part of Shanghai. So now the likes of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will be clamouring to take advantage of this new market, flooding it with hardware and looking to hook an entire gaming population on some new gaming trend.

We'll have to wait and see how that turns out.