Capcom is looking to get into China and South Korea's online game market with some modifications to its console games. Reuters reports that Capcom's CFO, Kazuhiko Abe, expressed it would be an "attractive step to modify" its console games for online use in other Asian markets, as Japan only has a "certain group of users" into online games.

The publisher should have plenty of money to fund its expansion into western Asia after it reported $803 million in sales (up 11.5%) and about $75 million in profit (up 34%) for fiscal year 2007. Games like RE 4 Wii, RE: Umbrella Chronicles and Devil May Cry 4 saw "robust sales" overseas, while Monster Hunter Freedom 2 shook the money tree back home in Japan.

Read -- Capcom aims to enter China online market
Read -- Profits at Capcom

Microsoft has dropped the price of its Xbox 360 in four Asian markets: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan (via Bloomberg). According to Microsoft executive Jeff Bell, price reductions in Europe caused sales of the hardware there to almost double.

Here are the price drops reported by region:

• Hong Kong: An 11 percent drop
• Singapore: A 20 percent drop to S$499 (US $366)
• South Korea: A 5.1 percent to 369,000 won (US $369)
• Taiwan: A 17 percent drop to NT$10,360 (US $340)

According to a Microsoft spokesperson in Taipei, the Hong Kong and Taiwan price drops will come today. The Singapore and South Korea price drop confirmations came from separate emails with no confirmation as to the effective date.

Oh, that Kazunori Yamauchi. He loves to tease us. In an interview with Germany's derStandard (partially translated by develop), the man behind the Gran Turismo series says it would be "very, very improbable that GT will come out on another console." No surprise there, but then that little scamp of a developer entices us with a line about the series "perhaps [coming] to the PC. Particularly [for] the Chinese market."

Of course, a PC version would be the only sane choice for the Chinese market, where the PS3 is not officially released and the PC dominates the gaming scene -- and Yamauchi didn't even confirm that such a Chinese PC version exists. But we can just imagine how this quote will morph and mutate in the hands of fanboys, until, sometime soon, someone will ardently argue that Yamauchi actually confirmed an Wii version of GT5 would be out any day now. Mark our words ...

[via PS3Fanboy]

China isn't exactly a stranger to video game piracy, but you'd think a major undertaking like the upcoming Beijing Olympics would be able to avoid association with this unseemly process. Not so according to Cadin Batrack, who noticed some extreme similarities between his 2006 flash game Snow Day and the Olympic site's Fuwa Fight the Olympic Clouds.

The infringing game has been removed from the Olympics site as of Monday, but two other games that are still up on the site seem cribbed directly from similar games at Ferry Halim's excellent Orisinal.com. While game cloning is nothing new in the casual games business, these Olympic site games show signs of going past simple inspiration and towards outright theft of the original Flash files themselves. The theft is especially ironic because China has itself made an intense effort to stop pirates from using their Olympic logos and mascots in unlicensed products. What's the Chinese word for hypocrisy, again?

[Via AOL Sports]

Remember back in the late '90s, when Square was so frustrated trying to fit their opus Final Fantasy VII onto the cartridge-based Nintendo 64 that they made their famous defection to Sony? Well, just a short decade later, China's Shenzhen Nanjing Technology Co, Ltd has apparently done what Square couldn't, squeezing the PlayStation epic onto a cartridge. And not just any cartridge .. a Famicom cartridge. How's it feel to be shown up, Square?

Of course, the conversion isn't perfect. According to a write-up from intrepid blogger CinnamonPirate (who unearthed the 2MB ROM from a Chinese blog) the polygonal graphics and cut scenes are gone, replaced with an impressively wide array of sprites, many stolen from other Final Fantasy games. The story remains surprisingly authentic, though, encompassing the entire three-disc epic while only leaving out a few optional side stories (bye bye, Yuffie and Vincent). The wide array of weapons, magic and materia from the original is a bit restricted in the port, but frankly, we're impressed that features like materia-leveling made it on to the 20+ year old hardware in any form.

The company behind the cart is apparently now primarily makes MP3 players, so our hopes for a Colecovision version of Final Fantasy XII will probably remain unfulfilled.

Fans eager to get competitive gaming recognized as a real sport got a boost recently when the Global Gaming League announced they will be organizing a video gaming "Welcome Event" for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. "The Digital Games" will include World Cup-style national tournaments leading up to an international finals competition in Shanghai, where Olympic soccer matches will be held.

While video games are recognized as an official sport by the Chinese government, the tournament falls quite a bit short of being an official, medal-worthy event at the 2008 games. Still, it's an important first step to that eventual goal, and one that GGL CEO Ted Owen thinks will be popular in its own right. "We believe the crowds we'll get will be far larger than for the Olympic games themselves," he said. That's a little hard to believe, considering 3 million attendees overall are expected for the real games. If the GGL is lucky, maybe they'll be more popular than racewalking ...

Read - Announcement on GGL
Read - Article on CNN/Fortune

On the same day he decreed the Wii's price will not be lowered, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata announced plans to bring its money-printing home console to China and South Korea next year, following this year's supposed holiday season console shortage.

"We suffer a global shortage of the Wii," said Iwata in a news conference (via Reuters). "Our responsibility now is to deliver as many consoles as we can to existing markets ... But next year, I think we can bring the Wii (to China)."

Though China received the Nintendo DS in a timely manner, South Korea didn't get an official launch of the portable until January of this year.

[Via Engadget]

A 30-year old Chinese man from Guangzhou reportedly died from exhaustion at an internet cafe after a three-day online gaming marathon.

Details from the incident are mixed: the Associated Press reports that he was declared dead at the cafe, whereas Reuters claims he was rushed to the hospital after fainting. Neither report mentions what games the man was playing. The Chinese government this year imposed restrictions on the amount of online gaming for minors in the country.

Let this be a reminder to you, dear reader, to get out of your seat and go for a walk every now and then, make yourself something to eat, shower, nap, maybe even do some homework.

[Thanks, Lucas]

Read -- Associated Press (via CNN)
Read -- Reuters (via Yahoo!)

Incorruptible Fighter is an online game in China which has players taking on corrupt party officials GTA style. According to Times Online the game was created by civil servants who wanted to make a "lighthearted counterpoint to constant accusations of endemic corruption" in the government. The game was meant to only host 500 people, it currently has approx. 100,000 taking out corrupt Communist Party officials and their mistresses through "weapons, magic and torture."

We can't help but laugh how someone didn't think a game about killing corrupt politicians wouldn't catch on? Although, in China, corruption is taken a bit more seriously, last month the former head of China's food and drug safety oversight was executed for taking a quarter million pounds in bribes to approve drugs that killed dozens of people. Hmm, that sounds like a typical day in D.C. -- minus the justice part ... when do we get our version of this game? Incorruptible Fighter has been criticized for looking stale and that there is no reason for the children of the corrupt officials to be targets. One professor from Peking University says that government officials should be getting anti-corruption lessons, "not local youngsters." Yeah, but local youngsters grow up.

[Via GamePolitics]

The Chinese version of World of Warcraft has removed skeletons. Yup, skeletons are no longer in the game. No fighting skeletons and no skeletons signifying you've resurrected. Enemy skeletons now have flesh on them and dead players are symbolized by a tombstone. The9, which runs WoW in China said the change was made due to China's "particular situation and relevant regulations."

No real reason for the change were given, but Chinese WoW players have expressed their unhappiness with the decision. The best possible explanation the Reuters piece could come up with is that in April, China began a campaign to combat "negative online influences" on the Internet. It's aimed at fraud and illegal lotteries (wonder if gold farming is on there?). So enjoy your skeleton-less World of Warcraft China, 'cause for some odd reason the government just doesn't think a skeleton is a "healthy" thing for your body.

Microsoft has purchased 15 million shares in Sichuan, China-based Changhong Electric Co., valued at 94 million yuan (about US $12 million). That's just one percent off the company, according to the Taipei Times.

Said Microsoft spokesman in Beijing Roger Chen, the two companies will explore "a wide range of scenarios for digital entertainment needs ... The project focuses on in-home network digital entertainment -- how to connect PCs, TVs and the Internet to provide this digital entertainment experience."

The first thought that comes to our mind is the Xbox 360, Microsoft's most prominent living room entertainment device, and potentially is related to their IPTV service. No concrete details have been given about the project, so consider this all speculation at the moment.

The folks at Insert Credit recently received a disturbing e-mail from an employee of Chinese electronics/game peripheral manufacturing company, Firstsing. According to the letter, the Chinese government raided the headquarters, seized the computers, and have held most of the employees for questioning. Some have been kept in excess of 100 hours. The authorities are trying to get someone to admit wrongdoing so the government can "legally" take the company's funds, apparently because Firstsing is doing well in a poorer neighborhood and the government wants a piece of the action.

It isn't known if Firstsing is guilty of any sort of chicanery, but the way employees are being treated is distressing. They've been told that their families may be held in captivity for up to a month, and the author of the e-mail fears for their safety.

Electronic Arts has acquired a stake in Chinese publisher The9, Gamasutra reports. The US-based publishing powerhouse will have 15% of the The9's common stock, which amounts to US $167 million. The two companies also announced a licensing agreement that makes The9 the sole publisher of FIFA Online in mainland China.

EA had previously half-denied reports of an investment, saying that at the time there was "no signed agreement with The9." Rumors of an investment date back to at least September 2006. EA Asia Online president Hubert Larenaudie stated that he believes this is "another significant step" in building EA's presence in Asia.

It is unclear how this arrangement might affect The9's relationship with EA rival Vivendi, who licenses the massively popular World of Warcraft to the publisher.

China's estimated 18 million underage online gamers better enjoy their unfettered play time while they can. State news agency Xinhua is reporting on Chinese government restrictions that will limit internet gaming for minors starting July 15. The reasoning behind the limits? A National Children's Center report that claims 13 percent of those young Chinese gamers -- over 2 million players -- are addicted to online games. Apparently, in this case, the good of the few outweighs the freedom of the many.

Reportedly, minors who spend more then three hours a day in-game will lose half their "earned credits" -- five hours of gaming a day will lose kids all their credits. Possibly more chillingly, all online gamers will be required to provide their government ID number to confirm that they're over 18. That's right -- Big Brother is watching you play games.

Previously: China to set three hour limit on MMORPGs

[Via Next Gen]

Nintendo has pledged its support of a US-led stance against China's burgeoning military budget, er, counterfeit video games market, according to a company presser today. With few government restrictions holding them back, pirates plundered an estimated $762 million worth of booty in China last year. And these scallywags aren't your typical kid brothers burning DVDs in the basement and exchanging them for lunch allowances in the cafeteria. No, this is well-organized crime, which has accounted for the more than 7.7 million counterfeit gaming products seized during the past four years -- and only a single criminal prosecution brought against the more than 300 Chinese factories and retailers dealing in this illicit trade. To avoid punishment, an operation need only keep its pirated stock below a certain threshold and do away with bookkeeping.

The rampant piracy, which affects hundreds of companies in the games industry, has prompted the US Trade Representative to seek formal consultations with China regarding the government's failure to meet World Trade Organization obligations concerning intellectual property protection. Nintendo has chipped in, providing evidence of piracy in China and other countries during the annual "Special 301" investigation. In turn, the US Trade Representative will use this evidence to push China to comply with global standards. "Progress must be made," urged an unusually stern Nintendo.