Bloomberg: China's Tencent buys 20% of Harvest Moon developer
Tencent, through its affiliated company Frame Investment, is going to spend $65 million to buy 20% of the Japanese developer of console and mobile games Marvelous. Thanks to the deal, Tencent will become the largest shareholder of the Japanese company.
STORY OF SEASONS: Friends of Mineral Town
The deal, with reference to the official statement of Marvelous, is reported by Bloomberg.
The developer plans to spend the raised amount on strengthening existing game franchises and launching new ones.
The interest in Marvelous on the part of the Chinese, Ace Research Institute analyst Hideki Yasuda explains their desire to learn more about the development of console games by Japanese companies.
It seems to us, in turn, that the deal is due to the crazy success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons from Nintendo. What does Nintendo have to do with it? Now let’s try to explain.
In 2003, Marvelous released Friends of Mineral Town, one of the most successful games in the Harvest Moon series (now the series is officially called Story of Seasons in the West). At the moment, Marvelous is preparing for a worldwide release of its remake.
Both the original and the novelty are projects close to Animal Crossing in gameplay, setting and visual range. The Chinese Tencent can’t get close to the Nintendo franchise, but even before the current deal, it signed a contract with Marvelous to develop a new Story of Seasons project.
In other words, Tencent wants to enter the niche of meditative social console games, where there is no cruelty, but you can fish or grow turnips. Now this genre is more relevant than ever against the background of the success of Animal Crossing.
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