Chinese Internet giant NetEase has opened another gaming studio in Japan as the company continues to spread overseas.
A company in Hangzhou has hired Toshihiro Nagoshi, a former Japanese game developer Sega, to run the new Nagoshi Studio in Tokyo, Japan.
The studio “will focus on developing high quality console titles that will be released worldwide.”
NetEase has never been more aggressive in its global expansion than its rival Tencent. The latter looks set to travel around the world with acquisitions and investments in small gaming companies. NetEase, on the other hand, was setting up studios and taking small items from other companies.
Tencent and NetEase have traditionally focused on PC and mobile games, which are the most popular platforms to play in China. The fact that Nagoshi Studio focuses on console topics highlights NetEase’s pressure to attract audiences beyond China, where console games are popular.
Console Games accounted for about 28% of the $ 180.3 billion market gaming revenue last year, according to market research company Newzoo. But in China, where consoles were banned for about 14 years until 2014, the market is very small.
That is why Chinese gaming companies such as NetEase and Tencent are focusing on console games as part of their international push.
In 2020, NetEase opened Sakura Studio, another gaming console in Japan focused on console game.
In an interview with CNBC last year, Hu Zhipeng, NetEase’s vice president and one of the top executives of the tech video game industry, called the console market “very good.”
He also said that he intends that 50% of sports revenue will come from overseas in the future, from about 10% now.