Niko News is a filter of the most important news items and bits of information concerning the games markets of China and Southeast Asia uncovered by Niko each week. Our multilingual analysts review dozens of news sources from several countries, and as a team Niko reduces the long list of articles to 3-4 "must read" items for you. We then provide our Niko analysis to these items, making them relevant and highlighting the importance for the market. This service is one of the many ways we help distill the confusing, conflicting information about the games markets of Asia for our clients and readers. 

Not a lot going on at E3 for Asia as it was mostly consumed with console hardware and games announcements, but there are a few things to note:

-The Oculus Rift VR headset would probably be a big hit with Chinese developers and hardcore gamers, and if the consumer price fits their budget, what a market it could be!

-Wargaming's World of Tanks is doing really well in China and SEA, and it was surprising to hear of the announced version for Xbox 360.

-An increasing number of western game publishers are embracing F2P PC online games and even going the distance to set up studios and business offices in China and other parts of Asia in order to learn, develop and operate there in a competitive way. 

It doesn't matter much in mainland China, but the general feeling is that PS4 would dominate over Xbox One there because it allows secondhand games and it is not region locked, and it does not need to be online all the time, plus it costs $100 less than Xbox One. For other countries in Asia that do not ban consoles and that have legal console resellers (not all Asian countries do), the Xbox One will launch in late 2014. 

According to TechCrunch: Apple announced that a host of new features will be included in iOS 7 that should make the mobile operating system even more useful for the Chinese market, including a Chinese/English bilingual dictionary and handwriting recognition for multiple Chinese characters. But possibly the most significant bit of news in terms of iOS 7 and China is that Tencent Weibo, the microblogging site that essentially functions as a Twitter focused on the Chinese market, will be "supported" in iOS 7.