PSP smuggled throughout China despite ban on gaming consoles
How China's population are getting hold of the PSP despite government ban
According to a new report, thousands of PSP consoles are being smuggled throughout China whilst Sony and the government authorities turn a blind eye.
Vendors have taken to smuggling consoles from Hong Kong, where PSPs are legally sold, back to Beijing, where they are illegally sold through the ‘grey market’ to customers across China.
Reports say that some professional smugglers visit Hong Kong as often as twice every month, smuggling up to five or six PSP consoles in hand luggage.
Other sources reveal that some are obtained directly from manufacturers in Shenzhen in southern China, where numerous factories manufacture the PSP.
Console banVideo games consoles have been banned in China for just over a decade now, with the sale of the PSP being no exception.
Introduced in 2000, it was originally hoped the ban would prevent China’s youth from wasting their time and money on games and gaming devices. However, in just a year PC online gaming had exploded, gaining a market value of around $100 million. Despite the obvious popularity of gaming, the ban still hasn’t been lifted.
Hong Kong, unlike the rest of China, is a special administrative region. The console ban doesn’t apply there, making it the main hub of the PSP smuggling trade.
For the rest of China, plug-n-play consoles like Nintendo's iQue player have emerged as a legal alternative, although this hasn’t stopped people trying to find a way around the ban, which sees China's population unable to buy the technology it manufactures.Piracy
However, there are other problems present in the Chinese video gaming industry - China is one of the top culprits for video game piracy, with estimates claiming that 90 per cent of all software is pirated.
Sony was previously burned with the release of the PlayStation 2, which led to massive software piracy and cheap knock-offs being made.
In this case, however, Sony actually benefits from turning a blind eye: smuggling helps to increase brand awareness and generate sales, although others have argued that this ultimately damages the growth of China’s own domestic gaming industry.
Kotaku