Platinum Games Secures Tencent Investment

Tencent, who recently acquired a 10 percent stake in Team Sonic Racing developer Sumo Digital, has made a capital investment in Bayonetta developer Platinum Games.

The investment, which unlike Sumo, will not result in Tencent taking an ownership stake in Platinum, according to a statement made by the developer’s president and CEO Kenichi Sato on Tuesday. Instead, Sato sees the investment as the beginning of a “parnership” between the two companies:

This partnership has no effect on the independence of our company, and we will continue operations under our current corporate structure.

We hope to use this capital to strengthen our foundation as a business and expand from game development into exploring self-publishing. We also hope that this partnership can give us a wider global perspective, while still creating high quality games that stay true to our name.

Bayonetta, originally a Sega property, has been buoyed of late by Nintendo, and a third entry in the series remains in development exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. Many eyes are looking to the next Nintendo Direct, expected either later in January or February, for additional details.

Meanwhile, Sega will release a 10th anniversary bundle of the original Bayonetta and Vanquish for PlayStation 4 and XBOX One next month.