A report published by market intelligence firm Niko Partners, specialists in the Chinese game industry, states that the country's video game market saw spectacular growth in 2006.

The report found that revenue from the overall video game market jumped by 68% last year, with the online gaming sector generating USD 995 million in revenue, an increase of 74% from the previous year.

Unsurprisingly, the report singled out China's booming internet cafe culture as the main driver for this growth. The introduction of free-to-play massively multiplayer online games - in which players pay for virtual items - has, according to Niko's managing partner Lisa Cosmas Hanson, further stimulated this trend.

...and alongside the 20 million PCs in China's 225,000 internet cafes are an increasing number of consoles...

Read more here (GamesIndustry.biz)