PS4 and Xbox One: Chinese Gamers Follow the Massacre

The execution-style murder of the Xbox One by Sony’s E3 press conference hasn’t escaped the notice of the Chinese bloggers. Games.QQ reported on the audience reaction at Sony’s conference, noting that after announcing that the PS4 will not impose any new restrictions on use, Jack Tretton (president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America) received twenty-two seconds of applause. When he announced that players will be able to trade, sell, and lend their game CDs, or keep them in their permanent collections, Tretton received twenty seconds of applause. There was ten seconds of applause when Tretton declared there was no need to verify every 24 hours for you to play your games.

Tretton was essentially making a bullet-point list of everything people disliked about the Xbox One, and saying that the PS4 wasn’t going to be like that. To top it off, the PS4 will be $100 cheaper than the Xbox One.

Games.QQ continued to post several user-made images that have been making the rounds online, including:

Chinese users agree that the Xbox One’s policies on used games, trading games, and sharing games is ridiculous, saying, “I bought the game disc, I spent my own money, if I want to give it to someone I’ll give it, if I want to play single-player offline, you manage it? The game company manages it?” Another user wrote, “Microsoft is digging its own grave. Putting money before everything else will ultimately cause you to not make any money.”

On Weibo, the most popular post on the Xbox One and PS4 debate is more funny images of the PS4 wrecking the Xbox, while the more “serious” debate has users stating, “One is too disappointing, it’s totally unsuitable for China.” Another user was more direct: “Conclusion: whichever can play pirated games is the one I’ll buy.” Someone else noted that Sony has a zero tolerance for piracy, but they have the better policy about second-hand games and has better exclusive games, and more exclusives than the Xbox. Other comments included:

• “This time, even the US media is consistent.”
• “The used game policy is a problem… I think Xbox will change its policy restrictions on used games. Otherwise, at this point there’s no way it can compete with the PS4.”
• “I only need a console to play games. Xbox’s video and audio features are useless in this country, so I don’t see a reason to choose the Xbox, even though I’m an Xbox player.”