China striving for #2

According to iResearch, an internet market research firm, China will be overtaking South Korea this year in the Online Games Market size. South Korea has been a strong competitor in the past, holding strongly onto #2, but the chances of them holding onto the title when a 1.3 billion person juggernaut decides to take the silver seem pretty slim.

South Korea is expected to hit the $960 million mark this year while China is expected to jump 28 percent, allowing them to ting the $970 million tier.

While these numbers are staggering, it currently seems unlikely that China will be expanding into the US any time soon, as they have predominently been developing products for internal use only. Major asian competitors like NCSoft have gone ahead in the previous years and made the west connection with the successful titles Lineage II, City of Heroes, and Guild Wars, to name a few.

Shanda Entertainment, one of the largest Chinese based companies has a healthy sum of MMO's, but again, I fear they will never hit ours shores. This of course isn't really a concern for China I suppose being that they have a large enough population to never market outside their country.

I kinda hope this will spark a bitter rivally between the two nations yielding a monetary flux in the gil-seller market for MMO's. I would like to see Koreans and Chinese fighting (see: lowering their prices for immaterial money) for my business. Drive the prices down! Come on China! I want FFXI money in my Happy Meals!

\\drew