So I have a major choice to make, tomorrow: whether to start a university study of Japanese culture (and obviously, learn to speak Japanese) or of Chinese culture (which comes along with Mandarin and Cantonese.)
Now, I am having extreme difficulty making a choice between the two at the moment, so I'm now at the point of thinking that I'll simply do both in due time: start with one, get a degree and then complete the other study (which will take about 5 years each.) I intend on living in both countries. Now the question isn't so much what you think I should pick (I imagine the views would be infinitely skewed towards Japan on here anyway, given its pronounced influence on video games), it is rather about China and how easily attainable video games are over there.
See, the thing is, China's not exactly the most "Google-friendly" of countries and while I can handle that, I do find myself wondering how easy it is over there (I've never been to China, unfortunately) to go to a store and pick up, say, a PS3 and some games for it, that have a Chinese dub or at least subtitles. I read on Wikipedia that there is a pretty big MMORPG obsession amongst young people that the government is even trying to combat, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about your average Xbox 360 or PS3 game. Does anyone know anything about this? The reason I'm worried is that I looked at the Chinese Amazon and could find not a single game or console to buy there.
Being able to play video games is important to me, and one of the very best ways of picking up a new language (I learned Italian entirely through playing games in Italian for about a year or two, and now speak it close to fluently) so I really hope China provides enough options for buying that stuff.
I know it's probably a really silly question but the immediate availability of video games is of importance to me. If there's anyone who might be able to shed some light on this, that would be much appreciated. :p Thanks!
It's all MMORPGs, free to play games, and PC stuff mostly because it's cheaper over there to do that. I have a feeling consoles will be one of those super overpriced luxury items they sell to that fancy new middle class they're nurturing over there.
When I played WoW I befriended a Chinese gold farmer and she told me that she still enjoyed the game even though it was basically her job to get gold and nothing else.
This is the extent of my knowledge when it comes to gaming in China.
Why is the first half of every topic meme spouting? Yeesh.
I would say Japan is your best bet. On a hunch I went to the PS3 Launch wikipedia page and according to that it's been released in Hong Kong, but it doesn't say China... I thought Hong Kong was a city in China? I dunno. Wikipedia just says Hong Kong. So that's peculiar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_launch
@MechaKirby: Hong Kong is one of 5 Autonomous regions in China, that although answer to the PRC in the big picture, really are their own governing body, with their own methods (and in Hong Kong's case, language. Being that Cantonese is the main language in Hong Kong although Mandarin is the official language of China). It became such after England returned Hong Kong to Chinese ownership in 1997.
I lived in Shanghai during my last year of high school and managed to find a few places that sold console games, but if you want to use games as a way of immersing yourself in the language you'll be mostly going to internet cafes and playing weird MMO's.
If you can get yourself to Hong Kong you might be able to pick up some Chinese dubbed games, but I dont know for sure.
Also as far as I know anywhere outside of Shanghai/Beijing/Hong Kong wont have much of a market for expat goods (such as consoles and legit games) so you might be totally out of luck if you end up in the middle of nowhere.
And if you do end up going make sure you sign up for a VPN service so you can still access the whole internet.
@Dudacles@Slag: This sounds right to me. It'll be very very interesting to see what comes out of China in the next decade. More likely than not we'll see the establishment of "real" console developers and publishers. That said, Japan is due some sort of renaissance as far as games go. Could be China picking up steam will egg them on. Either of your options are bold ones. Maybe consider your life in these places, and let that be a more deciding factor than which industry might benefit you more. For all you know you'll have a change of heart in a few years and come back to the western world to develop games or whatever.
I lived in Shanghai during my last year of high school and managed to find a few places that sold console games, but if you want to use games as a way of immersing yourself in the language you'll be mostly going to internet cafes and playing weird MMO's.
If you can get yourself to Hong Kong you might be able to pick up some Chinese dubbed games, but I dont know for sure.
Also as far as I know anywhere outside of Shanghai/Beijing/Hong Kong wont have much of a market for expat goods (such as consoles and legit games) so you might be totally out of luck if you end up in the middle of nowhere.
And if you do end up going make sure you sign up for a VPN service so you can still access the whole internet.
Hope that helps!
When I read the first half of the replies I was starting to fear nobody would have anything to offer but that dumb meme, but luckily that wasn't the case. Thanks for the info, that really helps! I'll most likely end up living in one of the three major cities you named, so I suppose I should be all right.
One final question though: those console games you could buy in Shanghai, were they dubbed in Chinese or did they feature Chinese subtitles or anything of the sort? It's just such a great way to learn any given language for a video game enthusiast such as myself, it'd be great to know.
@OtakuGamer said:
I wouldn't go to China for video games.
I'm not going for video games, don't worry, haha. I'm from Belgium (which is in Europe, should any of you not know) and I simply want to explore the world. To me, one of the best places to start with that is the geographical opposite of my country, and then you end up around China. Their culture is also very far removed from ours, which makes it very interesting to me: seek out two opposite ends of a cultural spectrum and you might come to a better understanding of what drives people somewhere in the middle, right? (If that makes any sense.) I also think that simply travelling does not allow you to dig deep into what drives people in other cultures. For that, you need to speak the language and live there for a long enough time as to allow yourself to be integrated into the community. I wish to live in China for a number of years as to give myself this chance. The exact same thing goes for Japan: I'm very interested in its culture, think its language is beautiful and above all have this weird desire to live in Tokyo and absorb the grand nature of that particular environment. And I want to be able to speak Japanese just as much as I want to learn to speak Cantonese and Mandarin.
On top of that, I'm very much a language person and Cantonese and Mandarin are very challenging to learn for us Western people, which makes it an attractive obstacle to surmount, if you will. The exact same thing goes for Japanese, though it seems less complex than Chinese given its lack of tonal differences shifting the meaning of words.
Eh, I don't know what to do. I simply want to do both: I'll have to pick only a single one of them tomorrow. Cheers to all those that have offered information!
@Dudacles: All the console games are imports so it depends, I want to say that if it's a Hong Kong or Singaporean version of a game it might have some level of chinese subtitles or dubbing but I just dont know for sure.
Edit: Just checked my game collection, the copy of Uncharted 2 I got in Malaysia has a chinese language option (not sure if that includes dubbing) so they definitely are out there at least for some big releases on PS3
I'll preface this with I'm a Chinese American with relatives in China, for you know, credibility.
The gaming culture there is wildly different from Western gaming culture. There are almost no console players in China with an almost non-existent market for it. Most of it revolves around Internet cafes and PC gaming.
There's also the question of language, and learning Japanese is far easier than Chinese. But if you do learn Chinese, Japanese will come a lot easier because of character meaning similarities.
My recommendation would be Japan first, and then China. If you have any additional questions, PM me!
@Dudacles: All the console games are imports so it depends, I want to say that if it's a Hong Kong or Singaporean version of a game it might have some level of chinese subtitles or dubbing but I just dont know for sure.
Edit: Just checked my game collection, the copy of Uncharted 2 I got in Malaysia has a chinese language option (not sure if that includes dubbing) so they definitely are out there at least for some big releases on PS3
All right, well, it's better than nothing. Cheers, again!
@GERALTITUDE said:
@Dudacles@Slag: This sounds right to me. It'll be very very interesting to see what comes out of China in the next decade. More likely than not we'll see the establishment of "real" console developers and publishers. That said, Japan is due some sort of renaissance as far as games go. Could be China picking up steam will egg them on. Either of your options are bold ones. Maybe consider your life in these places, and let that be a more deciding factor than which industry might benefit you more. For all you know you'll have a change of heart in a few years and come back to the western world to develop games or whatever.
I am, I am, don't worry. The prevalence of video games in China is just a side note I wanted to hear about: I am very interested in China, and have been so for many, many years now, and only recently started to contemplate the possible lack of video games there. It's a big enough point for me, given my love for video games, to enter into the decion-making equation though. Which says a lot about me.
As for enveloping myself in the respective video game industries, well, I have contemplated becoming a translator/part of a localization team (the Persona 4 dub made me realise how awesomely hard it must be to get that stuff done, and how insanely interesting from a linguistic standpoint.) I'd like to do that one day. And maybe I'll get there: I currently speak Italian, English and Dutch fluently, and hope that ten years down the line, I might be pretty close to fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese and Portuguese as well. If I can speak seven languages, surely somewhere out there there's a job for me as a video game translator? Or so I hope. We'll see. :p
@Dudacles: I am the person you want to talk to about this.
I've attended high school and college in Japan, had an additional year of college in Taiwan, and am now living in Beijing. I speak Japanese fluently and can boast some moderate skill in Mandarin Chinese although my studies are ever ongoing.
Your post and questions could have been ripped directly out of my head 5 years ago. Let me share some of my experiences.
As far as languages go, Japanese is a MUCH easier language to learn than Chinese. There are several reasons for this.
First Chinese is a tonal language. There are 4 tones in Chinese (excluding the 5th toneless variation) so saying the same thing in a falling tone when you should have used a rising tone can be the difference between wanting to ask a question and accidentally asking for a kiss. This is counter-intuitive for most native English speakers as we use tones to imply emotions and this takes a lot of practice and muscle memorization to overcome.
Cantonese has 9 tones. Fuck learning Cantonese unless you really want to live in Hong Kong.
Japanese on the other hand has incredibly few sounds. It's very easy to pronounce. Outside of the "n" sound they don't even have regular old consonants. You never just see the "k" sound in Japanese. It's either 'ka' 'ki' 'ke' 'ko' or 'ku'. Think of all the Japanese words you know. Sushi, karaoke, and... what other words do non-speakers know?
I forget. Either way, it's easy shit.
The only real difficulty with Japanese is that the grammar differs in one large way. English uses the subject-verb-noun sequence (I eat chicken) while Japanese uses a subject-noun-verb order (I chicken eat). Japanese also has several levels of politeness (keigo, slang, casual) that are used in different circumstances, but that's pretty high level stuff you won't need to be concerned with and don't need to understand to be understood yourself.
Chinese people will tell you Chinese grammar is easy because they have so few rules. They are dirty liars. The lack of organized structure to their grammar and overwhelming abundance of 'special' rules for certain phrases has been a huge hindrance to my studies, not a boon.
Which language is more useful? Well they only speak Japanese in Japan, and China has a population of over 1 billion with other countries speaking formal mandarin as well, so Mandarin would be the way to go right?
Not really. Saying that Mandarin is the spoken language of China is like saying Mexicans only eat Tacos. I started studying Mandarin in Taiwan. At least I thought I had. Turns out Taiwan has a drastically different set of vocabulary, on top of it's own language/dialect (Taiwanese?). This is true for almost every goddamn province in China. Sometimes it's so severe people have no chance of understanding what the other person is saying (I'm looking at you Sichuan and Hunan province!) On top of having its own dialect Taiwan also uses traditional Chinese characters whereas the mainland uses the new simplified ones. That meant that essentially half of the characters I spent a year learning in Taiwan had to be re-learned in simplified with new mainland pronunciations and even tones.
Also, Beijing people laugh at my Taiwanese accent. It's pretty awesome.
Chinese only uses Chinese characters, Japanese has three sets of alphabets: Chinese characters, and two sets of phonetic alphabets (hiragana, katakana). Hiragana is used for native words, and katakana for foreign words. The existing of a phonetic alphabet (often used as furigana to give the correct readings of Chinese characters) also makes it an easier language to read, and fewer Chinese characters will get you a lot further.
As for the gaming culture? Japan embraces it whole heartedly. Game and game culture is everywhere. I loved going to TGS and browsing old game shops and Akihabara for Superfamicom carts and other nerdy paraphernalia. It's not cheap, but game culture is everywhere there. Also, the arcades are awesome.
China does have PS3, XBOX, and Wii. It's all just bootlegged. They sell modded systems here at electronic shops, and games can be bought in boot leg stores or on the street from poor people who make their living copying games onto discs and selling them. Want to buy a DS? They sell you an R4 right along with it.
The good? PS3 games and XBOX games can be gotten for around $1 U.S. This is obviously amazing.
The bad? Forget about using your system to go online. China laughs at the idea. Also, these aren't high quality officially released discs. That means a lot of the time I'd get halfway through a game only to have it lock up in the same place again and again, or never even run in the first place. A lot of times you buy a game, and it won't go past the title or first loading screen. You only lose a dollar though so it's not the end of the world. At least Skyrim worked for me.
As a side note I brought my Wii from the U.S. here and it looks like China has blocked access to the Nintendo network since it can't connect even though it hasn't been hacked.
Access to the rest of the internet can be easily accessed with a VPN. I use freegate (it's free and it works fine except no porn!) so save yourself some trouble and download it before you join us behind the great fire wall of China.
Hope that helped. If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.
@Penelope: Wow, that is an exceptionally informative post! Thanks a bunch! :D
My situation has evolved somewhat though, so it seems your post came a day or two too late (not through any fault of yours, of course.) When I made this topic I had about a day or so left to decide, so by now I've already gone and written myself up for the Japanese studies. High-level university Japanology, that is, so I will have to care about the politeness rules and stuff. :p You spend some years taking colleges on Japanese culture and receiving lots and lots of lessons on writing, reading and speaking it (some 16 hours a week in the first year, I believe.) I will also be required to study the characters and such extensively on my own time as to keep up with the class. After that, I will be required to spend a year or so living in Japan before coming back and finishing up my final year graduating. I'm assuming I will be up for this task for easiness' sake right now, of course. But I honestly think I will. I'm very much a language person.
My plan is to then go on and start the whole cycle over, but for Chinese. That's right. I want to learn both languages through university education. Some people think I'm stupid for wanting to do so but I have a large desire to explore both cultures, so that's how it's going to be. But Japanese is my current priority and will remain to be so for the next five years (though I got the option to take up a course on Chinese history and jumped at the chance.) My interest in China has not abated and besides, it also means that I will be able to drop the subject when I start my Chinese studies.
In the context of all this preamble, your post has been immensely informative, so thanks a lot for that!
I would go Japan, no contest whatsoever. Why? It seems far more interesting and far less closed off in terms of culture and information. Yeah, there might be some interesting stuff in China, but as far as I know China has no festivals that celebrate steel dicks.
As far as languages go, Japanese is a MUCH easier language to learn than Chinese. There are several reasons for this.
First Chinese is a tonal language. There are 4 tones in Chinese (excluding the 5th toneless variation) so saying the same thing in a falling tone when you should have used a rising tone can be the difference between wanting to ask a question and accidentally asking for a kiss. This is counter-intuitive for most native English speakers as we use tones to imply emotions and this takes a lot of practice and muscle memorization to overcome.
Cantonese has 9 tones. Fuck learning Cantonese unless you really want to live in Hong Kong.
Hey! Don't call my mom a horse!
If I were going to pick one Chinese city to live in? Hong Kong. Hands down. I was able to pick up Cantonese rather quickly; enough to hold my own in conversations, at least. Being of Chinese descent though, I'm worried that I'll go back to Hong Kong, say something with the wrong inflection and end up being held for spying for the US government or something.
But Mandarin and Cantonese? Holy fuck balls, if you've only ever taken Germanic/Latin basic languages, it's a whole new world. When I went to Mandarin school, we were taught bu pu mu fu. Pinyin? I had that shit down. Here I was, ten year old me thinking, "I'm a bad ass. I can now speak Mandarin and Cantonese -and- can read and write this." only to be told after second year, "Hah, sorry. That whole bu mu fu shit doesn't really exist. Can't read the lessons? Too bad, China don't care."
But learning to speak Mandarin? That was easier than Cantonese, for sure.
Console gaming is technically illegal here, but you can still find systems and games here.
The majority of 360s and Wiis here are modded, and you can pick up just about any pirated game you like. Most are in Englsh, but several (particularly on the Wii) are in Japanese. You can find non-modded 360s and Wiis, but original games are few and far between.
You can get modded PS3s as well, but there is still strong support for originals. I think this has to do with how the PS3 was unhackable for the first couple years of its life cycle. Anyways, most gaming shops have a decent selection of games. Not huge, though. You should be able to get most of your AAA games here, along with a few others. It might be hard to find lesser-known or lesser-popular titles, though. That said, you can easily order them off taobao.com, which is basically the Chinese ebay. Also, if you plan on living in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou, there is surely a larger selection of games in the shops.
As far as languages are concerned, it's kind of a mixed bag. Most of the game are printed in Hong Kong, and most of them have an option for traditional Chinese subtitles. This is due to the fact that these games aren't supposed to be sold on the mainland, so there should be no need for modernized characters. Looking at my collection, I believe God of War, Infamous, Uncharted, Demon's Souls, and others have traditional Chinese subtitles (optional). Not all games do though, like Madden, Dragon Age, Skyrim, and other text-heavy games.
Some games are simply not printed in Hong Kong, so you have to import them. My copies of Catherine and NHL are both from the States.
One other thing to note is that online play here is abysmal. There are no local servers, and the internet in China is very slow, so online play is extremely laggy. Some friends have said that CoD works fine, but I don't have any first hand experience. Madden, NHL, and Need for Speed are unplayable online. Uncharted and Demon's/Dark Souls are tolerable, but there is noticeable lag.
If you're into importing or buying pirated copies, sure, there's plenty of contemporary games to choose from in China. But major console makers and publishers choose not to release games in China specifically because of the pirated issue. I'm actually unsure of how easy it would be to get a console in China aside from importing.
If you're into importing or buying pirated copies, sure, there's plenty of contemporary games to choose from in China. But major console makers and publishers choose not to release games in China specifically because of the pirated issue. I'm actually unsure of how easy it would be to get a console in China aside from importing.
They sell them there. It's not like it's some underground operation. There's shops with "XBOX 360, PLAYSTATION3" in the windows.
If you're into importing or buying pirated copies, sure, there's plenty of contemporary games to choose from in China. But major console makers and publishers choose not to release games in China specifically because of the pirated issue. I'm actually unsure of how easy it would be to get a console in China aside from importing.
They sell them there. It's not like it's some underground operation. There's shops with "XBOX 360, PLAYSTATION3" in the windows.
I'm thinking of specifically non-bootlegged versions.
@dungbootle: The Youtsuba books are really the only Japanese books I brought with me to Japan because they are amazing and adorable. Absolutely my favorite. I'm just happy to meet someone who knows her not as "that four-chan girl".
@Zelyre: Yeah, Mandarin is easier than Cantonese, but it's not as useful unless you're going to live in Hong Kong. Mandarin's four tones are wiping the floor with me so when I heard that Cantonese had even more I simply went "Fuck that! Never learning that language!"
I learned bu pu mu fu in Taiwan as well. Not that it's doing me one iota of good here in Beijing.
Also, If anyone is planning on learning Japanese and then coming to China like I did... uh... don't bring it up a lot here. Japan is about as popular in China as a unwashed asshole.
Have fun learning Japanese dude. It's a cool language. Any idea where you'll be staying in Japan? I lived in both Tokyo and Osaka for a year. Loved both of them, but if you have a choice, I'd say aim for Osaka (even though they have a slightly weird dialect, it's awesome).
If you're into importing or buying pirated copies, sure, there's plenty of contemporary games to choose from in China. But major console makers and publishers choose not to release games in China specifically because of the pirated issue. I'm actually unsure of how easy it would be to get a console in China aside from importing.
They sell them there. It's not like it's some underground operation. There's shops with "XBOX 360, PLAYSTATION3" in the windows.
I'm thinking of specifically non-bootlegged versions.
I had a pretty easy time finding legit and bootlegged consoles. Chances are if you can speak a little Chinese you can ask them which ones can and can't go online. But I guess it depends where you go
I live in Taiwan (ROC). They speak Mandarin but unlike China it is a much more open and free (democratic) country. I had no problem buying a 360 here and everything else is readily available. A nice bonus is that my Taiwanese 360 is region free and plays (95%) of my old English (PAL) games here, my American friend has the same situation with his NTSC games.
I also spent a month in Japan and its a great country, preferable to Taiwan I'd say, but VERY expensive in comparison (although salaries will be higher).
Also, I had heard that Console Games are banned in China. Wiki says this about it. You can research elsewhere yourself. China is a pretty messed up country but I do know people who live and have lived there. It can be done, but do your research before you go, especially to do with Visa's etc. Don't just show up and expect to be welcomed in on a long-stay visa. Also, consider Taiwan - I've been here 2 years and it's a blast. If you need advice/info you can PM me or whatever...
The good news it that I believe both China and Japan use 120 volt and HD video format is standard so there isn't the PAL vs NTSC or 120V vs 220V thing going on.
Yeah, I wouldn't go anywhere near China with a ten-foot pole. Fuck video games, I'd be worried about being arrested for saying something the government doesn't want said publicly.
As to people thinking China's going to be the superpower of the future, it's been said for a long time. Not sure how that's going to happen, what with them being having been in a state of currency war for the better part of the last decade, having very little in the way of a middle class and an economy based almost entirely on cheap labor and building ghost cities. Theirs is a house of cards, not a real economic power.
Having lived in Japan for 4 years and now living in China i can tell you that Japan is a far better place to live if youre looking for video games.
However, if you want to make friends i would recommend China over Japan because most young people in China can speak at least a little bit english. Also, the Internet in China is sloooow, im annoyed at the speed of my Internet but from what i have heard from my chinese friends, it is far above average.
Also remember that some sites like youtube and facebook are banned in China, there are ways around it but most of them cost money
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