BesTV sets up industry alliance

BesTV, a new media subsidiary of SMG and the Chinese partner of Microsoft Corp, set up a new home entertainment industry alliance with 12 domestic firms yesterday.

The alliance, which includes Perfect World and Giant, will provide games and entertainment for the coming debut of Xbox One in the Chinese mainland in September. The formation of the alliance was unveiled at the 10th China International Cartoon & Game Expo, one of the country's biggest events of its type held annually in Shanghai.

It attracted over 33,000 people yesterday, the first day of the fair. Held at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center, the fair will end on Monday, an organizer said.

Top industry giants including Sony, SMG, Shanda Games, Giant Interactive and Walt Disney attended the fair yesterday.

In 2013, Shanghai's game industry revenue surged 34.2 percent annually to 25.5 billion yuan (US$4.1 billion).

Mobile online games continued to grow rapidly in Shanghai in 2013 due to the wide use of smartphones, tablet PCs and faster speed of the Internet, a government report said yesterday.

Last year, the revenue of mobile online games run or developed by Shanghai companies was 2.2 billion yuan (US$351 million), about 2.7 times the revenue in 2012, said the report, released by the Shanghai Press and Publications Administration.

In China 18.74 million players played mobile online games run or developed by Shanghai game companies in 2013, compared with 15.4 million PC game players.

In Shanghai the number of mobile game players jumped by 20 percent while PC game players rose 7.8 percent.