Platinum Games receive Tencent investment and promise other "big announcements" this year
Incoming news on Babylon's Fall
Bayonetta and Nier: Automata developers Platinum Games have made a big announcement to start off the year - they've got themselves a partnership investment from Chinese conglomerate Tencent. With this, they might start self-publishing games. That's not all though. The company have even more in store for us in the coming months, including an update on upcoming game Babylon's Fall, and according to Platinum's president and CEO, Kenichi Sato, 2020 will really be the year they come into their own.
"Last year, we said that 2019 would be a year where the curtain rises for a new stage for Platinum Games. We’re a bit late on that, but I believe we’ll have several big announcements to deliver early in the new year, so please look forward to that. That’s a promise I’ll definitely keep," he told Inside Games (translated by Siliconera).
One of the very first announcements they're making is that they've received a "capital investment" from Tencent "as a basis for partnership". With Tencent's money they hope to move from solely game development into self-publishing, and Sato writes that this new partnership "has no effect on the independence of our company, and we will continue operations under our current corporate structure."
There's no hard date just yet on when we'll hear about the games Platinum still have in development, but we do know we'll hear some more info at some point this summer on Babylon's Fall, the upcoming fantasy game from both Platinum and Square Enix.
Alice O at least seemed pretty excited for Babylon's Fall when they released a new trailer in December: "It’s got the lot: slow-mo, air combos, hookshot attacks, parrying a giant sword, and slaying a foe with their own weapon. All I need to see now is pert buttocks."