The Chinese tech companies Tencent and NetEase are expanding at an unstoppable pace. While the former wants to become the largest shareholder in Ubisoft, the latter is signing developers from several Japanese publishers.

NetEase’s approach seems obvious these days. Nowadays, the strategy of the Chinese state party to expand in this way (after all, it is a company under an authoritarian rule…) might be to attract existing teams. One example is Suda51’s team, Grasshopper Manufacture. Still, they have also brought over many people from SEGA, as they have also brought in the mastermind behind Ryu Ga Gotoku (Yakuza) Studio, Toshihiro Nagoshi, who has set up his new studio (called Nagoshi Studio).

The latest addition to NetEase is Hiroyuki Kobayashi, who came to the Chinese company from Capcom. Kobayashi wrote on Twitter on Friday, “Today, August 12th, is my 50th birthday. As such, I would like to share something special with everyone: After serving 27 years with gratitude, I departed from Capcom on March 31, 2022, and will officially join NetEase Games as a producer. Detailed plans will be shared later, so please stay tuned. I will strive to continuously create more enjoyable entertainment experiences for everyone at this new company in this new era. Thank you for the continued support.”

Kobayashi has produced some excellent games after having programmed the first two Resident Evil titles (to name just a few examples: Dino Crisis 2, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry 4, Dragon’s Dogma, and he was also the executive producer of Resident Evil 6 and Mega Man 11). He has recently worked on animated films (Supervisor of the Devil May Cry animated series; producer of Resident Evil: Degeneration, Resident Evil: Damnation, Resident Evil: Vendetta, and Dragon’s Dogma, and executive producer of Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness).

It remains to be seen what Kobayashi will do, but after more than two and a half decades, going elsewhere is not an easy decision. Good luck to him.

Source: WCCFTech