Story of Seasons

Japanese developer and publisher Marvelous has announced that it is set to enter into a 'capital and business alliance' with Image Frame Investment, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese tech giant, Tencent (thanks, Famitsu).

The decision to team up with Tencent - the company which helped Nintendo to launch the Switch across China towards the end of last year - comes as a response to changing working conditions said to be brought about by the new coronavirus and the implementation of 5G technology. Marvelous says that it believes a larger investment is necessary to keep up with advances in technology and the changes in people's lifestyles that will be seen as a result.

The partnership aims to create brand new IP which will be successful worldwide, as well as globally expand the franchises already owned by Marvelous like Story of Seasons and Daemon X Machina. Of course, back in March 2019, it was revealed that Marvelous had signed a licensing agreement with Tencent to develop a new Story of Seasons smartphone game.

The latest release in the Story of Seasons franchise, a Switch remake of Game Boy Advance's Friends of Mineral Town, is set to launch this July. Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101 developer PlatinumGames also recently received a capital investment from Tencent.

[source famitsu.com, via twitter.com]