I never argue with players about the "domestic console game market is not big", because the perspective is different, it is easy to finish.
In the eyes of players, the three major host companies have a national bank, no matter which generation of console masterpieces casually throw dozens of seconds of film out, can be a hit, originally only in the game forum, in recent years has expanded to B station, game live broadcast platform, and even Douyin, Weibo such a large circle.
If you say "there are fewer players", immediately there is a grumpy old brother who "don't you know that the xx market sales are all bought by Chinese".
This is true and makes sense.
But from the perspective of practitioners, the qualifier "domestic" before "console games" is the point.
According to data from the Game Working Committee, in 2022, which is considered "hot" by players, domestic console game revenue will be less than 2.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of about 8.8%, accounting for about 0.8% of the total domestic game revenue. The number of users is about 8,935,400, accounting for less than 1.5%.
In the terminal share statistics, console games do not even deserve to have a name, and are counted in the "other games" item.
Page games and mobile games are growing negatively, console masterpieces are frequently out of the circle, and the legendary "user demand" has also been upgraded, why is it getting worse and worse?
What are the three major host companies doing?
This is a concern for many gamers and people who want to work with console games.
The domestic market is not a Chinese market
"A lot of Chinese are buying, so the Chinese host market is big."
This is probably the most classic view in the discussion of the console game market, and it is also a misunderstanding.
First of all, the Chinese market and the Chinese market are not the same thing.
The so-called domestic market refers to the sales of software and hardware that have passed the audit and have domestic batch numbers. Even if there are 100 million good brothers to buy for his love or big cousin, as long as it is not a national bank, it has nothing to do with the "domestic market" half a dime.
So how much is licensed in China?
The machine is currently all available, but the release time is often delayed and the overseas version is delayed.
PS5, overseas version was released in November 2020, Bank of China in May 2021. NS, overseas version is March 2017, National Bank version is December 2019. XboxSS, overseas version November 2020, Bank of China May 2021.
Most of the people who are willing to enter the new machine can't wait for the waiting period of more than half a year.
So when you buy a National Bank machine, what is it to buy a National Bank game?
Under the existing rules, all the "masterpieces" related to combat and blood are not considered, not to mention Quiye, Johnny, and the skeleton pattern on Mario's pirate hat must be changed several times to appear.
According to the information released by the Copyright Administration, in the past three years, a total of 56 home console games have been reviewed in China (all three major host companies), of which 28 are domestically produced and 27 are imported.
In terms of the wave that only passed the trial in December 2022, there are "Noodle Man", "Crazy Lumberjack", "Pokémon Assemble", etc., the overseas version has long been badly played, and the National Bank game is also subject to DLC updates, network connections and other restrictions.
Secondly, it is often said that many people are buying, and there is no clear data support.
A lot of Chinese, how "many"?
According to the financial report of the Royal Sanjia, the PS5 has sold about 32.1 million units so far, and the cumulative sales of the Switch are about 120 million units, how much Chinese account?
Many people want to play, have they really bought it?
Taking the popular in the community and live broadcasts in recent years, such as "Motion Sen" and "Arceus" as an example, according to a Taobao three-crown console game store, "the actual sales of the explosive model are not too large, and there is a 20% increase", because there are not many masterpieces in the past three years, and the platform will "restrict the sale of overseas games" from time to time, and the annual revenue of all products has declined significantly since 2021.
In addition, in fact, not only domestic, the global host market has contracted in the past two years.
According to Tang Jiajun, secretary-general of the Game Working Committee, the actual sales revenue of the global console game market in 2022 will be about 45 billion US dollars, down 7.1% year-on-year, and 416 new games will be launched during the year, a decrease of 311 from 2021, a decrease of 21.8%.
Factors such as the decline in efficiency, increased labor costs and users' willingness to pay due to the epidemic have brought widespread troubles to this market.
Fortunately, the three major host manufacturers are still holding up, and they are also making some new attempts for the Chinese market.
Continue the three major aspects of "Sinicization"
As mentioned above, the current difficulties of the National Bank console are mainly two points: few games (less total, sad review, and fewer developers), and slow machine sales.
If they want to do a good job in the Chinese market, they have to solve it.
As for the method, Tatsuo Eguchi, chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Zhu Ying, CEO of Baijiahe, and Huang Haoqi, head of publishing and operation of Tencent's game Nintendo Cooperation Department, all talked about it, and to sum up, there are four main points:
1. Be responsible and value-oriented
For example, PS National Bank joined the domestic anti-addiction and juvenile protection work, and gave age-appropriate tips to the physical discs of the PS5 version of "Shadow Torch City", and then digital stores and CDs will access age-appropriate tips.
2. Maintain one-party game cooperation
For example, one of the core tasks of Baijiahe at present is to strengthen and consolidate the relationship between Microsoft's first studio and ensure the source of one party's games.
The specific operation is divided into two parts, one is to improve the localization ability of the national region, so that Microsoft games can better make money in China. At present, the team has completed localization solutions in multiple links such as technology, process, and communication, and has independently ported two products in 2022, and the localization work cycle has been shortened.
On the other hand, the three domestic agents or branches also provide overseas distribution and R&D support, and send new products and R&D teams to Microsoft.
3. Gather third-party development resources
Sony has China Star, Baijiahe and Tencent also have related developer support programs, and will currently provide domestic developers with financial, technical, tool, team management, marketing and other aspects of support.
4. Continue to improve the quality of BNM's services
For example, more convenient warranty return, recharge purchase, and seek network and update services close to overseas versions allowed by policies. This is the basis for the BNM warriors to pay for it.
In addition to these four points, according to domestic console game practitioners, the three major console manufacturers have emphasized "openness" in recent years while competing.
An obvious change is that due to the lack of new travel resources, BOC host partners such as Baijiahe and Tencent will take the initiative to mention "helping other platform distribution" when negotiating product introduction, and use managed "all-platform distribution" to win developer resources and launch cooperation.
There is still hope for the "domestic market"
Is there still a chance in China's console game market?
The answer is, of course, yes, but the main basis is not only that there are many people who understand the mouths of buddies.
According to the views of Huang Haoqi and Tang Jiajun, the domestic console game market still has a lot of room for development, as well as several clear directions.
First of all, as for space, on the one hand, as players said, Chinese players have a growing demand for high-quality console games, with domestic console users growing by more than 8% in 2022. On the other hand, in addition to mobile phone and PC game scenes, scenes such as parties, multiplayer socialization, and family entertainment are on the rise in China.
With the normalization of multi-terminal shared version numbers and approvals, the porting of "healthy games" and multi-terminal mature games focusing on parties, fitness and other themes to the BOC console will still bring considerable increments.
In terms of development direction, Tang Jiajun believes that there are mainly four:
1. Action games will be a suitable choice for Chinese game companies to enter the console track.
This category has a large market space, ranking in the top three in multiple platform categories in 2022, and at the same time, compared to role-playing and shooting, this track is not highly dependent on art design and engine, and the cost of R&D and trial and error is low.
2. Chinese-style games will help domestic console games go overseas better.
Data from a number of manufacturers show that during the warm-up period of product development, the worldview art style and game type are the parts that users pay the most attention to, while Chinese elements are highly recognizable, have large creative space, and have cultural foundations in Europe, America, and the Asia-Pacific region.
3. Creating or acquiring IP for console games will be the key to competition in the next game market.
In 2022, 85% of enterprises in China's top 100 console game popularity list have their own IP. In terms of users, 60% of users clearly mentioned that IP is an important measure of choosing games, so buying IP and doing IP will be the direction of long-term competition. In fact, Tencent and NetEase have long been working.
4. Make new payment methods, such as subscription, monthly subscription, etc.
Although the subscription model will reduce the user's time freedom to a certain extent, in the economic downturn, it may become a new way for console game companies to attract new users and retain old users.