Tencent, one of the biggest video game companies in the world, may now be planning to own less video games.
Tencent is one of China’s great multinationals, rivaling Sony and Microsoft in terms of market cap. Their big investments include owning 100 % of Riot Games, 40 % of Epic Games, shares in Krafton, Larian Studios, FromSoftware and FromSoftware’s parent company Kadokawa.
Bloomberg reports that Tencent is now looking into offloading some of their video game investments, particularly in Japan. Now, they will stay invested in bigger studios like FromSoftware and PlatinumGames.
Instead, Tencent is targeting Marvelous in particular, as well as other investments in lesser known Japanese studios.
Tencent apparently plans to pivot to Roblox-like UGC games made by their internal studios, and catch up to their rivals on AI.
What are small moves for Tencent could be devastating for the Japanese video game industry. Marvelous’ gameography includes Monster Hunter Stories, Rune Factory, and Story of Seasons. We can only hope for the best for them in these times.
