With Chinajoy in full swing in Shanghai, Sony Interactive Entertainment has placed its China Hero Project front and center, and today we hear more about it.
The Japanese website 4Gamer has interviewed project leader Bao Bo, who provided some interesting insight about the initiative.
We hear that the games released within the projects have been slightly fewer than what was initially estimated, but momentum has definitely picked up, so the expectation is to be able to release more awesome games in greater numbers.
The team is also growing, with three new members joining the staff this year alone. The Project is receiving more support from the office that determines global strategies, and the structure of the localization and testing teams has been improved to better support developers.
Bao believes the project has been quite successful, even because the Chinese gaming market has received a powerful tailwind over the past few years. During the first and second phases of the projects, consoles weren’t yet very popular in the country.
Yet, recently, PlayStation has penetrated the market at a rapid clip, and the number of people playing has increased dramatically. Interestingly, while Bao doesn’t know the specific market share, PS5 is more widespread than PS4 in China, since many began playing on consoles directly with the latest model.
Bao also mentions the three points that determine the selection of games for the project.
The first is the commitment of the development team, the second is the quality of the game design. China Hero Project asks applicants to send design documents that are used to assess the design and technical skills of the teams.
The third element is the experience provided by the game. The core of the game needs to be attractive to play.
Of course, visuals, storytelling, and whether the engine is used properly are also looked at, but there aren’t many development teams that are perfect in all of these areas. However, there are many games that are so attractive that more than make up for a couple of shortcomings and the China Hero Project aims to help them improve.
Interestingly, most of the games submitted for the third phase of the project were action games, about 70 to 80 out of over 100. That being said, there is no advantage related to specific genres. The reason behind the prevalence of action games is that they’re extremely popular in China.
Games selected for the China Hero Project belong to one of two groups, titles published directly by SIE Shanghai, and third-party titles published by other companies. In both cases, the project provides fair support, but in the former situation, they may go a step further and prompt some changes to make the game more attractive to the market. In the latter case, they only offer advice. Usually, SIE Shanghai decides to publish directly games that are expected to achieve a big commercial success.
Interestingly, Bao mentions that the China Hero Project strives to achieve a lasting relationship with the studios once they have established a connection. Even after a game is released, the Project will continue the long-term partnership with promotion on the PlayStation platforms.
One of the goals of the Project is to find the best developers and help them further improve their games, which in turn will benefit Sony Interactive Entertainment Shanghai.
“An easy example for Japanese people to understand is the relationship that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series had with SIE for 10 or 20 years. We want to create that kind of relationship.”
If you’d like to take a look at some of the games selected for the China Hero Project, you can enjoy new gameplay of Lost Souls Aside from the first phase and Unending Dawn from the third phase.
