“Through devotion and versatility, SIE is poised to empower its strategic
partners to address the ever-growing demand for high-quality digital
entertainment in the world’s fastest-growing market. Gamepoch is also
focused on bringing the most innovative titles to China’s gamers.” –
Stephanie Chen, CEO, Gamepoch“You don’t see a lot of industry-wide gaming
names in China,” concedes Takehito Soeda, Shanghai-
based regional Vice-Chairman of Sony Interactive
Entertainment Shanghai. “That’s an opportunity for
us, and that’s why I’ve been interested in bringing
the PlayStation 4 (PS4) to the Chinese market.
This country has the single largest legal market in
the world for software, mobile, computer and console
gaming. Because console gaming was illegal for so
long, though, we started operations with a market
share that was practically zero.”
Having originally worked with Sony between
1992 and 2006, Takehito returned to the company
in 2013, with his current tenure coinciding with the
easing of restrictions on console gaming in China.
“The company knew my background was a good
fit and that once they had done the research and
met with prospective partners, I could lead local
operations,” he says.
When he returned to SIE, he admits that bringing
the PS4, Sony’s latest iteration of its home gaming
console, to the Chinese market was a daunting
challenge. Despite the ban having been lifted, he
engaged in extensive negotiations with regulators
to assuage concerns about games that would appear
on the console. “In any other market, you can release
a game with minimal interaction with censors,” he
says. “In China, it’s a challenge. It slows what we
can bring to market, because we’re not just selling
hardware, we’re selling content.”
Even when software was approved by government
regulators, SIE lacked partnerships and local
infrastructure. Without distributors, Takehito says
getting games on shelves became a difficult task.
“We had to develop entire networks from scratch.
In essence, we went back to where we started and
founded an entire business.” He says that to build
interest in the console, he thought of ways to have
customers engage with the hardware firsthand.
“When people pick up a controller, see the
graphics the PS4 can process and engage with
the game’s story and style of play, they begin to
understand how it’s different from PC or mobile