Sony receives certification for PlayStation 3 in China

While China hasn’t been a very bad place in terms of gaming, the country has had a law for more than a decade that bans home game consoles like the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. According to a report by Reuters, Sony’s PlayStation 3 has received a certification of quality from a Chinese safety standards body. This has led to speculations about China’s console ban coming to an end.

Home consoles had been banned in China with the country saying that it needs to protect the well-being of its young people. While the certification for the PlayStation 3 may be a big thing, the body that gave Sony the certification has no authority to allow the console into Chinese stores.

“The Ministry of Culture has the regulatory authority over the console segment and is the sole organisation that can revoke the ban,” said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner of U.S.-based video games consultancy Niko Partners.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

China may lift its ban on home consoles with the PlayStation 3

While Sony has confirmed that it has received the certification, the company has not commented on the possibility of entering the Chinese market. “This does not mean that we have officially decided to enter Chinese market,” Sony spokeswoman Mai Hora said. “We recognize that China is a promising market so we will continuously study the possibility.”

It was also recently reported that Sony has shipped the newest version of the PlayStation 4 developer kit – which the company refers to as the Orbis – to developers. There are set to be four versions of the Orbis kit being shipped to developers. A previous version was essentially a graphics card. The newest version is a ‘modified PC’, and the third version will be the closest to the final specifications, and will be sent to developers in January.

The Orbis, according to VG247, is based on the AMD A10 APU series. An APU – which stands for Accelerated Processing Unit – is a combination of a GPU and a CPU. The PS4’s hardware is “based on A10 system and base platform”.

One of the biggest changes coming to the system is in the form of the interface. According to the source, the new interface will allow you to go anywhere while playing a game. This is not possible in the PlayStation 3 as some options require you to exit the game before using them. An example given was buying DLC from the PlayStation Store in the middle of playing a game and then seamlessly returning to play.

Sony had recently launched the new slimmer version of the PlayStation 3 in India. It could be speculated that the certification process and the possible release of the PlayStation 3 in China could be of the newest slim version.