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Tencent launches 60 new video games, partners with Microsoft as rivalry with ByteDance heats up
- The major launch comes days after Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studios and Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios formed a strategic partnership
- Analysts, however, see Tencent’s new video game titles achieving a more modest amount of success compared with previous releases
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Internet giant Tencent Holdings unveiled more than 60 new titles at its annual video gaming conference on Sunday, days after subsidiary TiMi Studios and Microsoft Corp’s Xbox Game Studios formed a strategic partnership, as competition intensifies with TikTok owner ByteDance.
Tencent, which operates the world’s largest video games business by revenue and China’s biggest social media platform WeChat, featured big-budget action games like SYNCED: Off-Planet as well as the Roblox online gaming platform at the conference. This year’s event featured about 20 more gaming titles than the conference last year, according to Tencent.
“Video games are becoming a ‘super digital scenario’ with endless possibilities,” said Steven Ma, Tencent’s senior vice-president and gaming chief, at this year’s conference. He indicated that video games are increasingly becoming more like social media platforms, where users can socialise and businesses can advertise in a 3D space.
“With the rapid growth of technologies, games are playing a different role in many areas … and it’s unleashing unimaginable power,” Ma said.
He cited as an example Roblox, which partnered with Tencent to secure two licences from the Chinese government to launch its massively popular sandbox gaming platform on both smartphones and personal computers.
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