Xbox One Will Be Sold Through China Telecom Corporation In China

We've already known that the Xbox One would be coming to China this September courtesy of BesTV, but what we didn't know was that that was only part of the equation. The China-centric manufacturing company is only going to be doing just that: manufacturing the Xbox One. The company has been contracted to provide mainland China with 100,000 stock keeping units. Today, we learn that China Telecom Corporation will be the one to actually distribute the Xbox One.

Gamespot spotted the story on Reuters, where it was revealed that the Chinese telecommunications corporation, approproaitely known as China Telecom Corporation, will be the distributor for the Xbox One in mainland China.

The China-based outlet has more than 30 million subscribers and will easily open the Xbox One to a vast wealth of potential consumers. However, Microsoft wanted to make clear the the console would not be sold exclusively to China Telecom's subscribers, and that there would be public access to the consoles via retail as well.

A Microsoft spokesperson commented about the news, stating that...

BesTV had some pretty strict requirements for Microsoft as far collaborations go, but China is way too big a market to pass up at this point. It wasn't made explicitly known if they acquiesced to the company's three requirements of having a CEO who could speak Chinese, understand the Chinese market and someone who understands Microsoft.

This condition was also extrapolated by China's own requirements to ensure that the console manufacturers have their devices made in China, while also catering to Chinese standards. This is separate from the 10 rules of censorship in place for the software products that the consoles would be able to run.

There haven't been a lot of details about what sort of software roll-out plan Microsoft has for the Xbox One in China, nor what sort of games they plan to focus on, but we do know that Forza Motorsport 5 will at least be on the table, as indicated in the Chinese Xbox One ad. The system was mostly promoted for its apps, language learning and for the Kinect snapping. Games was hardly a focus of the ad. But given the stringent rules of censorship setup by China, it's not unlikely that they would have to refocus their efforts on how to market the system without all the violent content and potentially sensitive or offensive material to China's ministry of culture.

For now, we at least know that the Xbox One will be coming to China with just enough help from the local business and manufacturing operators to get a decent marketing foothold in the country before Sony or Nintendo have a chance to get in on the region.

Sony, of course, still has plans to get the PS4 over into China, but it's been a very vague and detail-deficient process so far. No release date or pricing has been set for the PS4 in mainland China, even though Chinese gamers are more-so looking forward to the PS4.

The pricing for the Xbox One has also not been revealed for Chinese gamers, yet. But it's likely we'll get those details before the console launches.