TLBB expands oversea

I have talked about Sohu's TLBB for awhile now. My last TLBB specific post is all the way back in May last year:
http://chinese-net-gaming-stock.blogspot.com/2007/05/sohu-tl-game-progress.html

and my last article that is somewhat related to TLBB is here:
http://chinese-net-gaming-stock.blogspot.com/2008/01/sohu-starts-major-hires-for-its-game.html

Any way, just some tiny news regards TLBB. I believe TLBB is going to expand oversea. They are probably already in Vietnam. The following two articles talks about that they are going to expand into HongKong and Taiwan.

http://it.sohu.com/20080202/n255038340.shtml
They found the distributor in Taiwan. The distributor is the biggest game company in Taiwan. The closed beta is scheduled on March 2008.

http://news.17173.com/content/2008-01-26/20080126105117217,1.shtml
They found the distributor in Hongkong and Macao. The distributor is Gameone. The closed beta is scheduled on March 2008.

Even though I am from Taiwan originally, I don't have any clue of the game market in Taiwan. I believe that in the earning conference, Sohu said they don't believe they will have significant earning. But Sohu always down plays TLBB's earning potential.

But TLBB (the novel, not the game) and its original author are treated like the bible and a god in Hongkong and Taiwan. So many people has the collected edition (costs up to thousand of dollars) proudly displayed in their living room. It will be interesting to see how it goes in Taiwan and Hongkong.

Again, this showed that Sohu is much more marketing savvy than Netease. Netease still refuse to go overseas. Netease is saying that it is a 100% chinese company that only run game for Chinese only. It is wearing it like a badge of honor. But frankly, average Chinese treats Chinese companies that can go global with much more reverence.