Lenovo Plans Game Console for Chinese Market (PC Magazine)

Lenovo said Friday that it is entering the game-console business, albeit in China.

Lenovo representatives confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that Lenovo is forming a Chinese subsidiary called Beijing eedoo Technology Ltd., which will manufacture the “eBox” game console.

So far, Lenovo has not revealed any plans to bring the eBox to the United States. Lenovo representatives were not immediately available for comment at press time.

Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony are currently engaged in a three-way dogfight for control of the video-game market, with a total of $ 1.69 billion in games, accessories and hardware being sold in July, according to the NPD Group. In August, Nintendo claimed that it had sold 30 million of its Wii consoles, making it the fastest-growing console in history.

In an interview with the China Daily, eedoo executives said that the eBox would not use any physical game controller whatsoever, using technology like what is included in the Microsoft Kinect system for the Xbox 360 to allow the console to be controlled with movements and gestures. That technology is actually developed by PrimeSense, which has said that it may extend it to TVs and other devices.

China Daily quoted Jack Luo, the president of eedoo, as stating that the eBox may be priced “slightly lower than Microsoft’s Xbox, which retails for $ 299.99″.

About 30 free games will be bundled with the eBox, the paper reported, with 16 undiclosed global video-game developers signed on to create games.