That China is taking a certain lead when it comes to hardware and video games is very hard to argue with. In 2022 it was already the country with the highest spending on electronic entertainment and in addition to a highly competitive scenario in electronic sports, titles for PC and mobile devices are a daily reality for a large part of the population. So much so that the government continually intervenes through control measures against the use of video game.
A harsh regulation that is constantly renewed
It could be argued that the Chinese regulator maintains one of the toughest positions in terms of electronic entertainment in the worldas evidenced by regulations that limit, for example, minors to play online only three hours a week. In this sense, all video games must scrupulously respect certain requirements imposed by government approval and regulation bodies.
In addition to the exhaustive analysis carried out by the competent agencies, certain types of titles are expressly Prohibited, for example, those that represent youth violence, blood, corpses and certain types of bets, such as Poker games. This strict regulation and the rigor of the organisms limits the number of western projects that overcome the legislative obstacles. With all this and due to various economic policies, very different from those we are used to in the West, including the ban on selling consoles that ended in 2015in reality we are unaware of many of the peculiarities of the Gamer universe in China, for example, his own production of game consoles.
The most extravagant models of Chinese technology
Here we present some of the most extravagant game systems produced in the country, some of them, camouflaged to try to avoid the rules imposed by the government. We have a “Fun Box” designed in 2014, which ironically resembles Microsoft’s current Xbox Series X, a fusion of PlayStation 4 with Xbox controller and even a phone that dreamed of being a Nintendo Switch. Do you want to know how it went?
Lenovo – eeDoo iSe
Developed by eedoo in association with Lenovo, ISec It is one of the consoles that were sold disguised as an “entertainment system”. The device was developed in 2012, a time when this type of technology was prohibited, but even so it was marketed supported by Kinect-type peripherals and motion capture sensors. Actually, it was not well received by the Chinese public. The following year, Eedoo was sold to a corporate conglomerate, and all hopes that the console could recover from its rocky start were dashed.
ZTE, FunBox
launched in 2014 by the telecommunications company ZTE, Fun Box It was another of the consoles marketed in the country as an “entertainment system.” Mounting an operating system Android 4.3a 72-core GeForce graphics processor with 2 GB of DDR3L memory, 8 GB of Flash memory and a very reasonable price, allows you to run games available on Google Play Store.
Ironically, the device features a cube-shaped design that is slightly reminiscent of today’s xbox series x. Unlike the Microsoft console that is based on the latest technologies, Fun Box was a system designed to bring small mobile games to the comfort of home at a time when acquiring a console in China was very complicated.
Tomahawk F1
Manufactured by Fuzehe Tomahawk F1 it’s a fusion of PlayStation 4 with Xbox controller and an operating system Android. launched in 2016, the console has an Nvidia Tegra K1 4 Core A15 2.2GHz processor, Nvidia Kepler GPU, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB HD, HDMI ports, USB 3.0 and Ethernet input. Spec-wise, despite looking similar to Sony hardware, Tomahawk F1 has about half the power of PS4, but all the charm you can imagine.
sub Z +
Announced in 2018, sub Z + It is a hybrid between console and PC developed in collaboration with AMD that promised results similar to those of PS4. The game system features a really stylish design, runs a customized version of Windows 10 as the operating system, and has its own GPU, called Fenghuang. The company promised exclusive games that were never released, as the project was put on hold in 2019.
Matte 20X
In 2018three years after the end of the prohibition to market video consoles in the country, Huawei released an identity crisis gaming system that looked a lot like the Nintendo Switch. He Matte 20X It has a 7.2-inch Full HD OLED screen, 6 hours of battery life and a Kirin 980 chipset, accompanied by 6GB of RAM and 128GB in its most basic configuration.
In fact, it’s touted as a more powerful version of Nintendo’s hybrid, with support for physical buttons and analog controllers. It is probably the easiest device to identify since it can be bought via China, where it is advertised bluntly as “A superior portable console”. However, despite having a large screen, the Mate 20X, much to its chagrin, is still a phone.
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