how close it have to be? it is 3 months left, because i doubt it will be released in August or December, doubt about September too, so October, November.
so it can be 2-3 months to market the game. so unless they don't give a flying fuck about copies sold, the earlier you start marketing campaign, the better for the game.
it isn't like well known IP, recognized worldwide.
As far as I know there isn't a specific timeline between the greenlight for China release and the release itself or the release date announcement. Same happens with the greenlight / age rating for USA, EU, Germany, Korea, Australia, etc.
I'd say normally it's under a year, around 6-9 months aprox. But there are cases of 3 months, and other ones of over a year. If I had to bet, I'd say it will release around Q4 2024.
Regarding its marketing campaign, Sony started to market it back in 2017 when they announced the China Hero Project initiative. Since then they featured it in multiple China Hero Project events and trailers I mentioned in
this other post where I listed the state of all the China Hero Project games , in addition to other ones I didn't mention like this ChinaJoy 2024 case, plus as I remember in some State of Play or blog post.
it is some weird ass shit happening at Playstation with all marketing. look like they clearly take PS community for granted :/
They make a lot of marketing and looking at their sales it's more successful than ever, there's nothing wrong with it.
As an example for this particular case, in the OP of this thread you have a video of a panel where they showcase gameplay of the game, in an event -the biggest one in Asia, not sure now but I'd bet it's also bigger than GC so would be the biggest one in the world- where they have a booth where they also market the game. In the link I posted above you can see Sony marketed the game in different trailers and events for years.
It's a Chinese title that started as an indie solodev project, so obviously they don't expect huge sales because it would be naive and stupid. Which means that obviously won't have the same huge marketing budget than a GoW, Spider-Man, GTA or CoD game, it must be something relatively small. But they still have been marketing it for years, and it's fair to assume that as usual they'll market it more when very close to release.
You could think if they don't expect it to sell a shit, why to market it for years even if with a relatively low profile? The answer is because it's probably the best symbol and example of the strategy behind China Hero Project: to tell China that Sony wants to incubate, fund, support, market and -in some cases- publish new, small, promising Chinese teams helping them to grow not only in China but also in the rest of the world, both in PC specially in their console. And that even a one man army Chinese dev may end making a first party Sony game. To show them Sony is a good, interesting partner for their current and future indie/AA/AAA local industry and that their console features new and promising local talent.
Sony's goal is not getting huge sales of this specific game. It's to use China Hero Project to enter China and make partnerships with local emerging teams, from where maybe or maybe not in the long term some of them may end getting a big hit, but at least will provide them local products to grow in China while also providing a few extra interesting and exotic console exclusives every year even if not of the top quality level that add quantity and variety to their exclusives catalog.