While few people may even know their name, the Chinese multimedia giant, Tencent, actually has a significant presence in almost every part of entertainment. Gaming is no exception to that, either, as the company has major stakes in a lot of the biggest game publishers, such as Epic Games and Ubisoft. They are on the verge of entering into possibly their biggest and most involved one yet with a partnership with Nintendo to bring the Nintendo Switch to mainline China. It won’t be a one-way street, or at least Tencent is hoping it won’t.
In talking to The Wall Street Journal, an anonymous Tencent employee said that internally the company is hoping to use their leverage with Nintendo to create console games with their characters. It seems they want to use this as a way to get into more American homes.
While Tencent has a significant presence behind the scenes in the industry, they’ve rarely done a lot in such a direct fashion, and Nintendo isn’t known exactly for their sharing ways (though they have loosened up a lot in recent years). It’ll be interesting to see what the partnership evolves into.
