Sony is backing plenty of PlayStation 4 games that are made in China

With many games to choose from, Sony promotes a Chinese Zelda: Breath of the Wild knockoff as PlayStation exclusive

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Sony has more PlayStation 4 consoles running Genshin Impact than any other game. (Picture: Josh Ye/Abacus)

Published: 5:30am, 6 Aug 2019Updated: 11:21am, 13 Aug 2019

Sony’s booth at China’s largest gaming convention this year is leaning heavily on Chinese games. The several games that have emerged from the second round of the China Hero Project are on display, but the game Sony chose to highlight isn’t one it helped fund.

Instead, the game headlining Sony’s booth is a Chinese game that’s been widely criticized as a blatant knockoff of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is also being featured at the convention.

At ChinaJoy, considered China’s version of E3, Sony revealed that Genshin Impact will be a PlayStation console exclusive in 2020 (it’ll be available on PC and mobile, too). In June, game was the subject of some harsh criticism in China because of the close resemblance the gameplay and story had to Breath of the Wild.

All that negative attention didn’t bother Sony, though. Shuhei Yoshida, the president of Worldwide Studios for Sony Interactive Entertainment, even praised Genshin Impact as one of his most anticipated games for 2020.

Genshin Impact was developed by Chinese company miHoYo, which apparently has a penchant for copying successful Nintendo games. The company recently teased a new game that appears to take more than a little inspiration from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.