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Tencent snaps up 20% stake in Japanese games firm Marvelous

Date Type Companies involved Size
May 26th, 2020 investment Marvelous Europe
Tencent
$65m
Tencent snaps up 20% stake in Japanese games firm Marvelous

Chinese tech and entertainment giant Tencent has said it will acquire a 20 per cent stake in Japanese developer and publisher Marvelous.

The company has said it will spend ¥7bn ($65m) to buy stock from Marvelous as well as Amuse Capital and former Sega president and CEO Nakayama Hayao. This cash is going to be used to help Marvelous both continue to launch its games, as well as enter new markets.

“In comparison to Western companies, there is a widening abyss in terms of development capability and financial clout,” Marvelous said in a statement to Reuters.

Marvelous was founded in 2011 and has been behind titles like Daemon X Machina, which hit PC in February of this year following an initial launch on Nintendo's Switch in September 2019. It also acts as the publisher for the Skullgirls fighting game franchise and published Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes on PC in October 2019.

This is the latest games activity from Tencent. Last week, it was revealed that the Chinese giant had taken control of Otherside Entertainment's System Shock franchise, while in February the company invested in Spec Ops and The Cycle studio Yager.


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.