Tencent acquires 20% stake in Japan’s Marvelous
Chinese gaming giant buys into Daemon X Machina and Story of Seasons studio
Tencent is to acquire a 20% stake in Marvelous Inc for ¥7 billion ($65 million).
The purchase will make the Chinese gaming giant the majority shareholder in the Tokyo-based company behind titles including Daemon X Machina and Story of Seasons.
“Tencent’s reason for the investment is probably to learn how to make console games from Japanese companies, one of the last frontiers for the Chinese tech company’s game business,” Ace Research Institute analyst Hideki Yasuda told Bloomberg.
“The investment will help Marvelous ride through the period of global economic uncertainty, and release more of its domestically-popular titles to the Western market.”
Tencent is Asia’s second-biggest company by market value and has invested in more than 800 companies.
As well as owning League of Legends maker Riot Games, it has a 40% stake in Epic Games and holds shares in Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, PUBG Corporation parent company Bluehole, Sumo Group and PlatinumGames.
Earlier this month Tencent confirmed the hiring of Kojima Productions founding member Ken-Ichiro Imaizumi and Halo 4 lead designer Scott Warner.
OtherSide Entertainment also said Tencent would be “taking the System Shock franchise forward” after the indie developer ran into difficulties with the project.
