There is speculation that China is set to lift its decade-long ban on games consoles with the news that Sony's PlayStation 3 has received a certification of quality from a safety standards body in the country.
Video game consoles have been outlawed in China since 2000, with the authorities citing the need to protect the well-being of its young people.
However, two models of the PlayStation 3 were shown on the China Quality Certification Centre website, labelled "computer entertainment system", as having received approval in July.
All products must pass the safety standard before they can be sold to Chinese consumers.
But analysts have warned against reading too much into the approval certificate, pointing out that the organisation that gave it has no regulatory authority.
"The Ministry of Culture has the regulatory authority over the console segment and is the sole organisation that can revoke the ban," said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner of US-based video games consultancy Niko Partners.
Sony confirmed that it had received certification, but would not comment further on whether this heralded an imminent entry for the PlayStation into the world's second-largest economy or whether the company needed further certificates.
"This does not mean that we have officially decided to enter the Chinese market," Sony spokeswoman Mai Hora said. "We recognise that China is a promising market so we will continuously study the possibility."
China's Ministry of Culture was unavailable for comment.
But despite the cautions, there are signs that the authorities in China are taking a less hardline attitude towards game consoles.
This year Lenovo Group launched Eedoo CT510, a motion sensing device that plays games similar in concept to Microsoft's Kinect extension for the Xbox game console, by touting it as an "exercise and entertainment machine".
While video game consoles are banned in China, online gaming and games on mobile devices are hugely popular, which means opportunities for game machine makers such as Sony - and rivals Microsoft and Nintendo - to exploit the potential of the economic explosion there are less than might appear.
"It obviously has a huge population, but gamers in China have different consumption habits," said Piers Harding-Rolls, senior games analyst at IHS Screen Digest in London.
"A lot of established gamers will use non-dedicated devices they have used over many years."
He added that the makers would also have to find ways to ensure that their income from games software and other content was not limited by piracy.
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