Chinese internet and entertainment giant Tencent announced that it is working with The Pokémon Company to develop games.
The release didn’t say anything about which platforms or any other details about the games. Tencent is the mobile giant behind Honour of Kings and PUBG Mobile (now called Game of Peace) and other big PC titles in China like Crossfire and League of Legends.
It’s interesting that Tencent announced its deal with The Pokémon Company after the Japanese company also announced a deal with NetEase, one of Tencent’s big rivals in China. It seems like Tencent and NetEase are going head-to-head to become Chinese game companies that are also successful in the rest of the world, and deals with key game franchise owners — like The Pokémon Company — are key to that competition.
Tencent has also agreed to take the Nintendo Switch, made by one of the part-owners of The Pokémon Company, to the Chinese market.
Separately, The Pokémon Company is working on Pokémon Masters, a mobile game in partnership with DeNA, and it continues to support Pokémon Go, made by Niantic.