NetEase and Tencent both have made steps to continue their seemingly unstoppable expansion.

Bloomberg reports that Toshihiro Nagoshi, the Yakuza series’ creator (who is thus one of the essential personnel in Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio) is in the final talks with NetEase to join them. Nagoshi previously worked on the Sonic, the Valkyria Chronicles, the Virtua Fighter franchises, and Vanquish.

NetEase and Tencent, the two big Chinese tech companies (who are rivals, too) both want their ACG segment (animation, comics, and games) to get stronger by acquiring Japanese talent. “Tencent and NetEase have been speaking to just about all publicly traded studios here and are actively courting some privately held developers, too. They both feel pressure to make headway in Japan, especially since game regulations in their home market are becoming increasingly restrictive,” Serkan Toto, Kantan Games’ industrial analyst, said.

Bloomberg also reports that Tencent is “on the brink of acquiring another studio” without mentioning who they are. Tencent is a company that is in many studios. They own several of them (Riot Games, Funcom, Leyou, and Sharkmob), they have majority stakes around the world (Supercell, Grinding Gear Games, Klei Entertainment, 10 Chambers Collective, Stunlock Studios, and Yager Development), and they aren’t weak in minority stakes either, including some prominent names (Epic Games, Fatshark, Garena, Dontnod, Marvelous, Netmarble, Kakao, Bluehole Studio, Frontier Developments, Sumo Digital (though a complete acquisition is pending), Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, Paradox Interactive, Remedy Entertainment, and Bohemia Interactive). They also made a capital investment last year in PlatinumGames.

If Nagoshi leaves Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Yakuza’s future (as well as the spin-off Judgment’s… although the agency behind the protagonist’s actor is against the PC appearance) might be dire, even though the franchise began gaining popularity in the West.

Source: WCCFTech