NTES XYW status – Closed Beta

My last article on XYW can be found here:
http://chinese-net-gaming-stock.blogspot.com/2008/07/ntes-two-new-games-went-into-closed.html

From the following article, XYW,
http://xyw.163.com/2008/9/17/4076_192653.html

XYW will start the 2nd closed beta on 9/25/2008. This closed beta is open to the public. In addition, the player characters are going to be permanent. Basically, this 2nd beta test will fit all the definition of an open beta testing.

If they want, they could start to charge money on 9/25/2008. NTES did some minor marketing for this closed beta.

In addition, from what I reported before, TX2 had its final closed beta on yesterday, 9/24/2008. There is a little marketing for that game also.

It surprises me that NTES had those two games out for the closed beta so close to each other. But those two games are in different categories. XYW is a cartoonish turn based free to play game, while TX2 is a 3d real time free to play game.

It is going to be difficult to tell when the commercialization of a game starts. For all practical purpose, TX2 had already started charging players for items starting 6/6/2008. NTES will most likely start to charge for items for the XYW soon.

After XYW, FF2 shall be out by the end of this year. After that, the new game DT2 shall be ready soon afterward. That game will probably be ready by the 1st quarter or 2nd quarter 2009. In addition, there are also the licensed game the two Warcraft games as well as the Starcraft 2 game. All of these games will probably be ready in 2009.

The next 3 quarters are going to be extremely busy for NTES.