There have been years of deliberation, policy making, bureaucracy and discussions about consoles being sold in mainland China. Well, the ban on sales for consoles within the mainland has been lifted.

Uproxx picked up the story from the Wall Street Journal, where it was reported that China's Ministry of Culture have acknowledged that the ban on home consoles has been fully removed since originally being established back in 2000. There was a soft restriction that went into place originally back in 2014 where home consoles were allowed to be sold only through the Shanghai Free Trade Zone; but it greatly limited the potential market reach for the main console manufacturers.

Regardless, Sony and Microsoft quickly jumped on the opportunity to sell their devices in one of the biggest untapped consumer markets for home console devices.

Microsoft managed some decent sales out of the gate with the Xbox One after partnering with local distributors, and Sony also managed to move some product when they launched the PS4 earlier in the year in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. However, sales weren't really rocketing and that was due to the limited distribution region in which the consoles could be sold.

Some individuals noted that consoles could always be purchased in China, just through the black or gray markets – the latter of which usually included localized bootleg renditions of the American made and Japanese home consoles.

However, at this point it's no longer required to use copycat consoles through the gray market or illegally acquired consoles through the black market. China will allow gamers to get their hands on the home devices without trade restrictions.

There is a bit of a caveat to this news.

Mainland consumers won't have access to the same kinds of content as the rest of the world.

China has a ”10 rules of censorship” policy in place to prevent content makers from distributing unapproved content throughout the mainland.

Most gamers noted that both Microsoft and Sony would have a difficult time moving their first-party titles in China due to the stiff restrictions regarding what kind of content is allowed in the mainland. A lot of gamers assumed that despite the restrictions Nintendo would likely benefit most in China due to their family-friendly titles and how they avoid a lot of topical manner that would otherwise have China's Cultural Ministry dropping the banhammer on the games.

Microsoft and Sony have already taken the liberties of adjusting their content to the rules of the region with both the PS4 and Xbox One. Some gamers worry that due to how large China's demographic is, content makers might start catering their content and creative sensibilities to further fit in line with China's regional restrictions. However, we'll see what the adoption rate is for the home consoles before worrying about whether or not Call of Duty will become more content friendly, or if EA and BioWare will start scaling back on more socially risque material in order to supplicate the cultural differences in China.

While the NPD only covers the sales of consoles in North America, it'll definitely be fun to see what the stats will look like as adoption rates begin to rise in China.