PlatinumGames, the Japan-based studio behind NieR: Automata and the upcoming Babylon’s Fall, just received a “capital investment” from Chinese conglomerate Tencent. Neither company is divulging how much money changed hands thanks to the new partnership. However, PlatinumGames President and CEO Kenichi Sato made it clear that Tencent’s investment is only that–a financial investment. Tencent has not acquired the studio; thus, it will remain independent.
With the capital from Tencent, PlatinumGames aims to expand its core business. Most notably, the company wants to venture beyond game development and begin “exploring self-publishing,” Sato noted in a statement. Self-publishing is something the studio has spoken of in the past. In fact, there are a couple of smaller titles PlatinumGames is already looking to publish on its own. Freedom seems the main allure of self-publishing, according to Head of development Atsushi Inaba. By developing and funding their own projects, studios are allowed more control over their IPs.
In addition to working on smaller projects and Babylon’s Fall, which should receive more news this summer, PlatinumGames is also hard at work on Bayonetta 3. At the time of writing, none of the studio’s current projects have releases date attached.
Tencent owns and holds a partial stake in a wide variety of companies across the industry, making the conglomerate the industry’s largest firm. For example, the League of Legends studio, Riot Games, is owned by Tencent. In addition, it has a minority stake in Activision Blizzard, while owning a pretty sizable chunk of Epic Games.
[Source: PlatinumGames Inc.]
