Tencent has taken about a 90 percent stake in Wake Up
Interactive for more than JPY 5 billion yen, Bloomberg News reported, quoting
unidentified people with knowledge of the deal.
Wake Up owns Tokyo-based Soleil, which helped develop
Nintendo Switch hits Ninjala and Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes,
Bloomberg said.
Tencent's lucrative gaming empire has been battered by a
state regulatory crackdown that has cut the amount of time school children are
allowed to spend playing games.
Players under 12 are now restricted from making in-game
purchases, and under-18s are locked out of games after two hours during
holidays and after one hour on school nights.
Regulators have also slowed approvals for publishing new
games as part of a broader crackdown on tech giants.
The Wake Up purchase, transacted in September, is one of
several deals that Tencent has struck with privately-held game makers in Japan
this year, Bloomberg said.
Tencent said earlier this week that its revenues in the
third quarter of this year rose 13 percent, the slowest pace since the company
went public in 2004, according to Bloomberg.
In September, scores of Chinese video game makers including
Tencent vowed to better police their products for "politically harmful"
content and enforce the curbs on underage players.
Tencent was also told earlier this year to relinquish its
exclusive music label rights by the market regulator, which said it had
violated antitrust laws.
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