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Tencent and Square Enix are setting up a company to develop new triple-A IPs

Tencent and Square Enix are setting up a company to develop new triple-A IPs

Japanese publisher Square Enix has announced a partnership with Chinese tech and entertainment behemoth Tencent to develop a new triple-A franchise.

The Final Fantasy giant says that a "letter of intent" has been signed in order to create "a strategic alliance" between the two companies. Sexy stuff.

The end result of this team-up will be some new triple-A IPs co-developed by the two Asian giants, but it also includes the creation of a "joint-venture company".

What this means exactly is unclear, but it's possible the duo will be creating one or more development studios to handle these new projects.

There's no word on the focus of these games beyond them making use of Tencent's internet capabilities and Square Enix's creativity.

"We have strong expectations for this strategic alliance with Square Enix Group," Tencent Group SVP Steven Ma - someone at the company with an actual name - said.

"The alliance will enable us to couple our broad range of internet service capabilities to Square Enix Group's superb creativity, and provide our customers with unprecedented content experiences on a global basis."

Square Enix president and representative director Yosuke Matsude (pictured) added: "Tencent Group and Square Enix Group share the vision of utilizing technology and creativity to deliver unprecedented entertainment experiences and services to a global audience. This newly established alliance will be a strong boost to Square Enix Group's strategy to diversify our content offerings and expand access channels to a wider customer base."


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.