Sony PS4, Vita handheld arriving in China 20 April

The Sony PlayStation 4 will officially go on sale in China 20 April, nearly three months later than the scheduled 11 January penciling and nearly seven months after the Xbox One arrived in the country.

Following the move of Microsoft and its Xbox One console into the southeast Asian market, the Japanese manufacturer has priced the consoles at around US$460, and the handheld Vita console, just under US210. A controller, for those interested, will ship at around US$65 a pop.

This is quite a big deal for Sony, considering that the company has already moved over 20.2-million PS4 consoles since its launch in 2014. That’s a huge figure, and taking into account the 1.4-billion members of Chinese society, there are sales to be had yet.

Read more: Xbox One sees China launch September 2014

Of course, breaking into a foreign land and expecting to claim sales immediately is a fallacious thought, but the gaming industry is experiencing a boom in China, fueled by mobile devices. That growth is forecast to explode in 2018, so there are plenty of reasons for Sony and Microsoft to be smug.

This move should also please Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai’s bid to boost his company’s profits by 25-times by 2018.