2K Sports Takes NBA Game to Chinese Market

June 23, 2009

Basketball is wildly popular in China and so are online games.

Seeing big revenue in that combination, 2K Sports announced today that it will create an online version of pro hoops game NBA 2K for the Chinese market. Chinese Internet portal Tencent Holdings will partner with 2K Sports on the deal.

Licensing for the game includes all NBA team along with current and retired players. 2K Sports president Christoph Hartmann is quoted in a press release issued this morning:

The incredible popularity of basketball in Asia combined with the love of online games in that region makes this a very exciting project for 2K. For the first time, 2K is developing an online game combining our expertise in making the best-selling and top-rated NBA 2K video game franchise with the proven ability of Tencent for developing and operating highly successful online game communities in China.

Online gaming was a $2.75 billion business in China in 2008 and more than a billion Chinese viewed NBA programming during the just-completed season.

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Comments

Re: 2K Sports Takes NBA Game to Chinese Market

Submitted by DarkSaber on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 08:39.

Wonder how long it will be until China bans it for not being CHinese enough.

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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.

-------------------------------------------------- I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.

Re: 2K Sports Takes NBA Game to Chinese Market

Submitted by Ashton on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 12:19.

I was wondering how long it'd take before someone would make a dumbass remark like this.

Not long, apparently.

Re: 2K Sports Takes NBA Game to Chinese Market

Submitted by DarkSaber on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 13:25.

Well that sure told me didn't it.

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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.

-------------------------------------------------- I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.

Re: 2K Sports Takes NBA Game to Chinese Market

Submitted by mdo7 on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 08:37.

I'm not that suprised that this game is coming out in China, Basketball is becoming popular in Asia. I remember they released the 2K baseball in Japan and probably Korea. I wonder if Sony can try to release MLB 09: the Show in Japan and Korea, it would boost sales and and boost the PS3 sales in Asia.

Re: 2K Sports Takes NBA Game to Chinese Market

Submitted by JustChris on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 10:58.

I hear that China has more people shooting hoops as recreation than the entire population of the US. The NBA has already tapped into that market a decade ago with its sales of NBA merchandise, and there were also many Nike ad campaigns in the 90's. I won't be all surprised if basketball video games weren't already popular there, games imported from the US.

GameSnooper

Re: 2K Sports Takes NBA Game to Chinese Market

Submitted by Ashton on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 12:21.

Basketball was popularized in Asia a huge amount in the 90s thanks to anime like Slam Dunk. The sheer number of teenagers in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and China who started playing basketball because of that anime is staggering, to say the least.

Re: 2K Sports Takes NBA Game to Chinese Market

Submitted by JDKJ on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 08:22.

Yo. Yao.

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