May 8th - Lisa Hanson to present about the benefits of market research when forming a JV in China at the Ishimaru Law China JV Boot Camp in San Jose, CA

By the time you read this, the Eedoo CT510 should have been released in China for $600. It is the Kinect-like console made by a Lenovo spin off. The product had gone by the names eBox and iSec over the past couple of years. Time will tell if a strategy to introduce such a high-priced console on China will work. So many interesting parts to this: 1) consoles are illegal, 2) Shanda released the EZ-Station console a few years ago for $800 and it totally flopped, 3) Lenovo is hedging its bets by releasing a competing product on May 15th this year: a Smart TV with Internet connectivity and a system-on-chip console with 30 games already embedded within, for about the same price, and 4) this release of the CT510 was not expected for many more months, after many months of delays already. There should be enough usage info to include some good analysis in Niko's gaming hardware report in September.  

Real Name Registration is a Chinese law that never really seems to get enforced. For a couple of years now the government has ordered online game companies and SNS and weibo companies to require real name registration in order to protect users from bad information, bad game content, and other general bad things. The game companies may have implemented the required systems but the users always found ways around the rules. The SNS companies have real name registrations, except for Tencent Qzone, which enables the QQ user name and happens to be the largest SNS site. The weibo sites were really going to be required for real names because they can produce social unrest in 140 characters or less, but as Digicha points out, Sina Weibo has admitted in its 20-F filing for the SEC that they have not complied with the real name registration rules fully as of yet. Perhaps it just takes time.  

Friendster is relaunching in Southeast Asia as a gaming hub, and partnering with MOL (Malaysia Online) for online payments in the region. Friendster has suffered in a strong competitive market, but perhaps relaunching as a gaming hub will set the site on course to maximize its millions of users and also acquire new ones. The inaugural party was set for last weekend in the Philippines, which is home to millions of avid gamers and SNS users (though they are among the lowest paying in SEA).