China’s getting a unique taste of flailing-armed Kinect gaming with a port of Infinity Blade, the acclaimed mobile fighting series.
Chinese Internet giant Tencent, which owns a stake in Inifinity Blade publisher Epic Games, is bringing Infinity Blade Destiny/Fate (a direct translation of the Chinese title) to Xbox One, reports Kotaku. It’s a combination of all three titles in the mobile series which found huge success on iOS. Getting a big exclusive like Infinity Blade, the first two installments of which sold more than $60 million on iOS, is a big coup for Tencent and may help Microsoft make inroads in a potentially lucrative Chinese market.
Microsoft released its Xbox One console in China on Sept. 28 this year, making it the first console launch in the country since 2000. Despite decent initial hardware sales — Xbox One sold 100,000 units in its first week — there aren’t that many games available, mostly due to strict government restrictions on the type of content that is and isn’t permitted in games.
Speaking at the Chinese launch of Xbox One, analyst Brian Blau at market research firm Gartner told GamesBeat, “I think the Xbox one launch in China is a milestone event. It represents the opening of a new type of market for the Chinese consumer, and if others followed suit this could be the start of a new gaming revolution in China.”
Sony is following Microsoft into China with the release of PlayStation 4, which may come before the end of the year, but the Chinese console market may not prove as successful as it is in Europe and the U.S..
Tencent vice president spoke to GamesBeat back in August and said that breaking into a market currently dominated by PC and mobile gaming might be difficult.
“It seems like it may only be a complementary or niche market,” said Wang. “If you look at what happened in Korea, Korea has no restrictions on consoles, but it’s still predominantly a free-to-play PC market. If people access games for the first time on the PC platform, most likely their friends will be on that platform. Certain people prefer to enjoy the console experience. In absolute numbers, it’ll be a big group, a mature enough market. But in relative percentages, it might not be that significant.”
You can watch Xbox One’s Infinity Blade in action below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKzQR4i0ULc