Chinese gamers will only have to wait one week longer than the rest of the world for the launch of the World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria. That’s because Blizzard and China’s Netease (NASDAQ:NTES) jointly announced today the arrival of the pandamonium-filled game on October 2nd. The global roll-out is on September 25th.
After getting the nod from regulators at the Ministry of Culture at the start of this month, it was hoped for a simul-launch, but at least one extra week is not too long to wait for its many fans in China. Its speedy release might be down to it being less controversial than a lot of other MMORPG titles.
The official name for Mists of Pandaria in Chinese will actually be: World of Warcraft: Panda Man of Mystery. Yes, “panda man”.
Netease has the license to operate the game in China, and the expansion pack will be available at the official Netease-Blizzard online store at bmall.163.com. As seen in the image above, it’s priced at 486 RMB (US$77). It’s already hitting some other e-commerce sites in the country, such as Amazon China and 360Buy, though shipping won’t really begin until September 28 in China, allowing Blizzard to first deal with the likely huge demand from the Korea and Taiwan launches on September 27th and midnight local time.
In an announcement from Blizzard about the mainland China launch, CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime said:
We’re excited to bring Mists of Pandaria to China on October 2, making this expansion a truly global launch. Mists of Pandaria contains the biggest variety of new content we’ve ever created for a World of Warcraft expansion, with features that will appeal to new players, veterans, and everyone in between. We hope players enjoy exploring everything Pandaria has to offer.
[Source: Netease Tech - article in Chinese]
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