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In an announcement made by PlatinumGames CEO Kenichi Sato, it was revealed that the Japanese game developer has received an investment from Tencent Holdings. Terms and the size of the investment were not disclosed by Sato.
“We would like to announce we have received a capital investment from Tencent Holdings Limited as a basis for partnership. This partnership has no effect on the independence of our company, and we will continue operations under our current corporate structure,” Sato said in a statement. “We hope to use this capital to strengthen our foundation as a business and expand from game development into exploring self-publishing. We also hope that this partnership can give us a wider global perspective, while still creating high-quality games that stay true to our name.”
Tencent has been making a push for Nintendo Switch titles, as it has partnered with Nintendo to gain more traction in China in the console market. China lifted its ban on console gaming hardware in 2015, but those devices still only account for less than 3% of China’s gaming market. In April of 2019, Nintendo entered into a “sales representative agreement” with Tencent to sell the Switch in the Chinese market. The Chinese version of the Switch was released Dec. 10.
China is a difficult market for console makers to conduct business in as they are required by government mandate to conduct all manufacturing and production within the country.
PlatinumGames has produced several games for the Switch including Bayonetta, Astral Chain, and Nier: Automata.
Tencent Holdings holds the largest investments in the gaming company space, having a 100% share of Riot Games, a 40% share of Epic Games, and 5% of Activision Blizzard.
