What's missing from China's Xbox One launch titles?

With the release of the Xbox One in China just around the corner, Chinese gamers will finally be getting their hands on an official version of Microsoft’s console. But are they really going to be getting the Xbox experience gamers outside China are familiar with? That’s debatable. Take a look at the launch lineup, and see if you can spot what’s missing:

• Forza Motorsport 5
• Kinect Sports Rivals
• Powerstar Golf
• Zoo Tycoon
• MAX: The Curse of Brotherhood
• Dance Central: Spotlight
• Neverwinter Online
• Rayman Legends
• Trials Fusion
• Naughty Kitties

In case you didn’t spot it, here’s what’s missing: a flagship first-person shooter game. Historically, Microsoft has always had at least one big shooter to boost its console launches. For the original Xbox, it was Halo. The 360 launched with Call of Duty 2 and Perfect Dark Zero. The Xbox One’s launch titles included Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4, even in Japan where first-person shooters aren’t as popular as other genres. Big budget action games, another staple of Xbox console releases abroad, are also conspicuously absent from the Chinese Xbox One launch lineup.

So what gives? Censorship, probably. That’s what the Chinese games media is suggesting, and navigating the government approval process likely does take longer for violent action games than it does for games about kittens. Xbox China GM Enwei Xie said in a statement that these ten games became the launch lineup after the company received “government approval for the first wave of games.” Microsoft has been quite public about its plans to bring more games, including the popular first-person shooter Titanfall, to the Chinese system, so there’s likely more on the way.

Another potential issue, of course, is that many violent action and FPS games have a major online component. Since Chinese law prohibits foreign companies from operating online games in China, games like Titanfall will require either a China-based partner or Microsoft’s local partner BesTV to set up servers and network infrastructure for the games. Getting that stuff ready takes time.

Whatever the reason, the Xbox One is set to launch in China next week, and barring another last-minute delay, these are the games that will launch with it. There may not be a flagship FPS, but are these other games going to be enough to attract Chinese gamers to the system anyway? We’ll have to wait and see.

(via Sina Games)

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