While Netease and Shanda are dominating the online gaming industry today, without new hits these companies will be has-beens tomorrrow. A strong development pipeline is critical to the staying power of gaming companies. While The9's 2005 pipeline may be impressive and some have said Kingsoft has the strongest offering of games this year, I would opine that Shanghai based 9you has a gaming repertoire that stands up to any of the heavy hitters in terms of quantity and diversity.

9you commercially operates two MMORPGs, has the sequel to one of the games in closed beta now and plans to launch another licensed MMORPG and an in-house developed 3D MMORPG this year.

9you also operates the online music game O2jam, which is DDR on your computer keyboard. The game recorded over 200,000 concurrent users in open beta. That was more than NC-Sina's Lineage II. O2jam's sequel, Audition, will soon begin open beta, and 9you expects that game to outperform is predecessor. According to 9you's gaming portal, where players can play casual games and the company's MMORPGs, 9you plans to launch yet another online music game in 2005. This one is in-house developed, and players will be able to hook up a dance pad to get the full experience. The catchy thing about these games is that players have really hip Avatars that they can dress up. My guess is that one would be hard-pressed to find a teenage girl who could resist. Revenues will be generated from the sale of accessories for these characters as well as other in-game items.

9you plans to launch a Korean developed online trading card game called Fantasy Masters in 2005 as well as casual game Tan Chi She, an online version of Snake. 9you's website also introduces a product that offers the lethal combination of friend-making (or online dating) and casual games. The product supposedly offers a match making service and then encourages new friends to get better acquainted while playing casual games. While this may already be going on on many of China's casual game sites already, it doesn't hurt to stick with what works.