China's first officially not really for video games but really for video games console, the CT510 has received a much needed price drop, sort of. The price drop seemed interestingly timed as the Lenovo-backed eedoo, the people behind the CT510, set up shop across China to lure in consumers. Not only did the price drop from the egregiously high $600 to a more modest $480, eedoo also released two new variations of the console.
Back in May, Chinese company eedoo released their "much anticipated" console the CT510 after months and months of delays. The console by all means was China's first officially released home grown video game console, but it also wasn't. Due to the console ban the system was marketed as a home entertainment and exercise device instead of an actual console.
Getting our hands on a system we of course reviewed it. The system, for what it was worth, basically a Chinese version of the Xbox Kinect, was quite a triumph in the respect that everything worked.
Unfortunately for the CT510 and eedoo, there wasn't enough marketing and the price was just too damn high. The lack of sales and market presence eventually led to the expulsion of some of eedoo's upper management. It still looks like eedoo doesn't know what it's doing.
With the recent price drop making the CT510 semi-affordable, the system is still a complete rip-off. An Xbox 360 with Kinect on the gray market costs about $223. To make matters worse, eedoo came up with the brilliant idea of coming out with 2 new variations of the CT510, the CT520 and the CT310. The difference is that they come in different colors and different hard-drive sizes. the CT310, the base model comes with a 32gb hard drive, the 510 with 250gb and the 520 with 320gb.
Recently, I visited a new eedoo "experience center" located in the heart of downtown Beijing, in a high-end shopping mall called The Place. Situated in the basement of the mall, the eedoo experience center felt like a tiny mall kart, sans cart. With about five tv monitors and four systems hooked up the center was supposed to double as both a marketing gimmick and a sales location.
However, when I arrived, at around 11:30am on a weekday, there was no one manning the location. After going to lunch and then returning at around 1:20 pm there was still no one at the shop. Getting fed up with waiting I spoke with the lady running the eye glass store next door. The lady said that the eedoo stand was often empty and the gentleman who ran the stand would be gone for hours at a time. She also said that the she hears business has been good for eedoo in general but she's seen few devices being sold at this location.
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.