Tencent prepares to bring Mario and Zelda to China on the Nintendo Switch

Nintendo Switch’s arrival in China seems imminent after Chinese distributor Tencent recently secured the rights to a number of marquee Nintendo games.

The companies announced three months ago that they were working together to bring the popular gaming console to China. Then Nintendo fans got some bad news when company president Shuntaro Furukawa said on a conference call that the Switch’s China launch wouldn’t be coming soon. 

Now things are looking up. The company is recruiting personnel for a new department called the “Nintendo cooperation department.” 

More importantly, government documents show that Tencent now has the right to distribute some of the biggest games on Switch, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe.

Still, some gamers fear changes that might be made to the Switch for China. The primary fear is a region lock. Microsoft’s Xbox One sold in China, for example, is the only version of the console with a region lock (although it can be reversed with a simple trick using a USB drive).