Perfect World International Trailer

Beijing Perfect World is launching Perfect World International, an English version of the MMORPG that's built for English-speaking spots in North America and Europe (you won't have to play the Malaysian version if you don't feel like wading through other languages!). The closed beta will be coming next month with anticipated release in September of this year. It sure looks pretty — I may just have to fire up the game this weekend to see if it's actually that pretty on my computer.

Okay, who voted with McWhertor in the E3 betting pool? Nintendo has announced that Grand Theft Auto is hitting the Nintendo DS in the form of Grand Theft Auto: China Town Wars, a game built with a custom engine and set in a mondern-day Liberty City. Details were vague but the the news certainly stirred the crowd at the Nintendo E3 2008 press conference.

We've had handheld GTA before, but handheld GTA on a device that can play a game for upwards of 14 hours straight? That's dangerous.

Hit the jump for the full press release from Rockstar!

Moving Beyond the Neon Lights in Chinese Gaming

Game Retailer to Donate 10% of Sales to China Disaster Relief

MSU Offering New Chinese Language/Culture MMO

Chinese Online Gaming Rebounds After Earthquake

Despite the massive devastation of China's recent earthquake, CDC Games, headquartered in China, said today that its revenues for its online games have rebounded almost immediately. Judging by the images on the news, it's easy to doubt that any Chinese are in the mood to play - but CDC says that's not so, despite the fact that its game service was suspended for three days due to the tragedy.

"In fact, on May 24, 2008 daily revenues for CDC Games were 1.3 million RMB, or approximately (U.S.) $187,000. In addition, the company has seen strong revenue growth from Shaiya, a massively multiplayer online role playing fantasy game (MMORPG) launched by CDC Games in December 2006."

China's online RPG culture dwarfs online gaming anywhere else in the world, and it's interesting to see that even (or especially) in the wake of a tragedy, gamers are making room for their favorite pastime. The image shown here, from CDC's Shaiya Online, is certainly much more comfortable to look at than this gallery of Seattle Times images from the center of the devastation.

It's MiWi v Vii In Battle For Chinese Wii Rip-Off Supremacy

Looks like the Vii's got some competition! This is the MiWi, by China's Eittek Electronics, and it's got the Vii beat in several key areas. Firstly, it's got a "W" in the name, just like the real Wii! Secondly, it comes not just with two controllers that look like Wii Remotes, but a bonus third controller that's equally familiar-looking. Finally - and perhaps most importantly - it also comes with a range of crummy "peripheral" add-ons like clip-on tennis racquets and golf clubs, to really round out that Wii-owning experience.

miwi game console is nothing like a wii, really [technabob]

Chengdu Police Arrest Two Gold Farmers

Steve at PlayNoEvil noted this little news story, which involves two Chinese gold farmers who have pulled in over $200K USD being arrested in China. Why? How, exactly? Well, it would appear that one of the pair felt they were being swindled out of profits and reported his partner to the police:

Chengdu's Shuangliu county has arrested two virtual item and currency traders, surnamed Li and Zhang, focused on tapping out The9's (Nasdaq: NCTY) licensed MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW), reports Chengdu Evening News. Police arrested the pair after Li reported Zhang for unfair revenue distribution. Going into business last August, the gold miners accumulated more than 20 employees with 20 computers to generate RMB 1.6 million in seven months of dealing.

Oopsies. I'll be nosing around for more on this story (like exactly what the pair was arrested for), but if any intrepid readers come across anything, send it my way. As Steve at PlayNoEvil notes, "Turn up the Irony Meter to 11. After all, with all of the complaints in the US about gold farming, it takes the Chinese to stand up and do something about it."

WoW Gold Miner Offers Himself Up To Police [Pacific Epoch via PlayNoEvil

New Sega Title Begins Testing in China

Chinese MMOs Go After Tibetans ... Er, 'Drug Smugglers'

Zhengtu Tearing Up the Chinese Market

China's Online Gaming Market Up 71%, Hits $1.7 Billion

Just about everything in the Chinese gaming market is on the rise, according to a new report by Niko Partners: with the exception of internet cafés (numbers are down thanks to a ban on issuing new licenses), everything is growing by leaps and bounds. The online market jumped 71% in the past year, which is no great surprise, but the grey market success of consoles may be:

Console game sales were up 75 percent on a per-unit basis to 2.48 million, but Hanson noted that due to a Chinese console ban in place since 2000, the entire segment persists through the gray market ....

"The big boom this year came from the easier availability of the new next-gen consoles ...."

She pointed to PlayStation 2 as being more popular than its successor, on the strength of its affordability, game library, and backwards compatibility, with Wii seeing popularity for similar reasons. Between PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Hanson claimed Xbox 360 is more popular in China for its price point and library.

Other details and explanations can be found in a nice wrap up over at Gamasutra.

Niko's Hanson On Chinese Game Biz Growth [Gamasutra]

China's The9 Acquiring Stake in Korea's G10

Pro Gamers Carrying Olympic Torch

Time to carry the Olympic Torch. Who are you going to choose? Pro gamers! That's right, famous pro Warcraft III gamers Jae Ho "Moon" Jang and Li "Sky" Xiaofeng will be carrying it and will be joined by StarCraft players Junchun "Pj" Sha and Lei "Leilei" Shen. No clue when these gamer luminaries will be carrying the torch, but probably sometime before it reaches Beijing.

Is it me or is pro gaming is so 2007?
Moon, Sky Carry [GGL Thanks, Craig!]

PlayStation Games To Be Ported To The PC?

Es ist sehr sehr unwahrscheinlich, dass GT auf einer anderen Konsole herauskommt. Aber vielleicht kommt es auf den PC. Vor allem am chinesischen Markt könnten wir so die Verbreitung fördern. [It's very, very unlikely that GT will be appearing on another console. But maybe it'll be released on PC. Particularly for the Chinese market.]

Disney to Acquire Chinese Game Company

Mainland China is the place to be for outsourcing, but Disney's game branch is bypassing that whole 'farming out to other companies' thing in lieu of purchasing GameStar, the company they've been using for outsourcing. Founded in '02, GameStar has offices in Shanghai and Wuhan, and will become the sixth studio in Disney's gaming portfolio.

Disney Interactive Studios General Manager Graham Hopper was quoted as saying that Gamestar will contribute to his company's "global growth plans" and new products.

... Following the acquisition, Gamestar will help with existing projects but may move on to developing original games for the Chinese market, Variety reported.

The terms of the acquisition were not divulged, but considering the excitement over the Chinese market, it seems to be unsurprising that Disney would want to throw their hat into the ring.

Disney game arm to buy Chinese developer [Business Week]

One Million Concurrent WoW Players In China

The9 Limited, the operators of World of Warcraft in China, has announced that they recently achieved a peak of one million players online at the same time. That's not the fudgy sort of numbers you get for subscribers either - that is one million World of Warcraft accounts online and playing at one time. That's the biggest number they've seen since the game launched there back in 2005. Of course there are 1.3 billion or so people living in China, so a million is just a drop in a bucket, but that's a very big drop in a absolutely gigantic bucket. To put things in perspective, if a million people stood on your head, your skull would be completely crushed. Them's skull-crushing numbers right there, and before you go blaming gold farming, keep in mind that these are Chinese servers, not people accessing servers outside of the country, so nya.

World of Warcraft Hits Record One Million Concurrent Chinese Players [GameDaily]

France Gets Wii Clone

It's spreading. To Europe. China's Wii rip-off, the Vii, has apparently been reskinned for the French. This made in China machine plays six games (Tennis, Football, Boxing, Bowling, Ping Pong and Baseball) and retails for €40. Accessories include a bat and what looks like three spoons rackets. Yes, we're calling it the "Ouii."

Sigh.
French Vii [Game Class via Game*Spark Thanks, Torokun!]