Tencent Eyes Integrated Mobile Gaming Platform

Ma Xiaoyi, vice president of Tencent, said during the Global Mobile Game Congress in Beijing this week that Tencent plans to launch an integrated mobile gaming platform, covering Tencent’s major mobile applications and quality products developed by third-party mobile game developers.

Ma said the development of Chinese game industry started in 2001 and the user group of client-based games reached 150 million over the past 12 years, establishing a CNY45 billion market. Meanwhile, the total number of Chinese game users reached 300 million if taking Web games and leisure games into consideration, and the market value reached CNY60 billion.

With the popularization of smartphones, mobile games will gain new opportunities and the user base is expected to reach 300 million by the end of this year.

Ma said mobile games cannot replace PC games; however, they allow users to enjoy the MMORPG game experience on mobile devices. He predicted that in the future, mobile game will be the major sector in the entire gaming market; while TV game and PC game markets will shrink.

Ma said the company will soon launch an integrated mobile gaming platform, which will combine Tencent’s major mobile applications and introduce third-party gaming products. This platform will provide developers and users with background support, ranging from servers to security.