Jack Ma led Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is planning to enter the high end video game console market next year and compete with the likes of Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One in China, according to market researcher Niko Partners, which has been following China game market closely.
Alibaba has refused to comment but the managing director at Niko Partners, Lisa Cosmos Hanson said in an email that she heard from a credible source that Alibaba may be ready with the console by early next year. If true, the move could shake up the video game business in China, where consoles were banned for 15 years by the government. The ban on consoles placed in 2000 was due to the alleged negative effects on the mental health of users.
Microsoft launched Xbox One in September this year and Sony is planning to release PS4 next month in the market. Alibaba is also a global company, and if it succeeds in China, who knows what it could do with a game console in the rest of the world. Alibaba could get a lot of support from the local game developers as well the government which encourages companies to make their systems in China or to tap local game makers as partners.
Alibaba has more potential for success, since it’s a more mainstream name in the country with its mobile offerings. For good measure, if it could find a way to utilise Android technology into its system, it could easily use a number of its applications and games at launch.
Alibaba is betting big on the gaming market in China and invested in a social mobile gaming platform called KTPlay, and put $120 million in Kabam. It is also taking Rovio’s Angry Birds: Stella into China. Most of those investments, however, are focused on mobile games or Android games for TVs.