Steam has officially arrived in China, and Sony’s PS5 is also officially coming

Although the international version of Steam has been available in China for years, an official Chinese release of the popular PC gaming platform has now made its debut (via analyst Daniel Ahmad). If Chinese gamers needed more reason to celebrate, Sony also announced that the PlayStation 5 will be coming to the country soon.

The Chinese version of Steam currently has only about 40 titles available, with about ten or more to appear soon. The list includes, of course, Valve’s own e-sports titles Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2. The service has been around for a long time – Valve has announced that it will bring it back to China in 2018, although Chinese gamers could access the service with Steam’s global client.

However, the global version has always run the risk of being shut down by the government at any time, as it contains games that have not been officially approved. According to an interview with Eurogamer, Valve’s official Chinese customer will only include games that have undergone the official approval process, although the company does expect the global version to continue to be available with the official.

For Chinese gamers who prefer consoles, Sony plans to launch the PlayStation 5 in Q2 2021 – though it remains to be seen whether the launch will be plagued with the shares seen in the rest of the world. So far, only a handful of modern consoles have been officially released in the country, as they were banned from 2000 to 2015. The PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch all have Chinese versions, but the PS5 seems to be the first next-generation console that officially arrives, as Microsoft has yet to bring the Xbox Series X and S consoles to the country.

For both Steam and Sony, it’s a big deal to have another billion plus customers available to buy their products. However, some developers in China are less enthusiastic and worry that the Chinese government may block the global version of Steam now that an official version exists. This will obviously lead to less access for gamers, and it will make it harder for Chinese developers to share their games with the world.