Video gaming

Nintendo has just launched its wildly popular Switch game console in China, more than two years after its global release. But in a country with the largest number of gamers in the world, Switch is facing some unique challenges. Gaming experts say Chinese gamers favor mobile phones and computers (not consoles like Switch) and the pace of introducing new games for Switch is slow due to existing regulations. On top of that, players in China won’t be able to play against gamers in other countries, due to region-locking. Chinese gamers can buy a Nintendo Switch bundle for 2,099 yuan ($298), which includes a copy of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. Titles like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Mario Od

Chinese gamers looking to bag their next monster hide are out of luck. The world’s largest gaming company, Tencent Holdings, has pulled a hit video game from its platform less than a week after launch in the latest case of Beijing’s tightened controls over online content. The gaming giant — which owns, among others, League of Legends developer Riot Games — removed Monster Hunter: World from its WeGame platform after authorities received “numerous” complaints about the game’s content, WeGame said in a statement on Monday. That’s the latest in a long series of blows for Tencent, which today released tepid second-quarter earnings of 17.9 billion yuan ($2.6 billion), down 2% on the previous qua

In the Far Cry video games, you play a trigger-happy protagonist sprinting through lavishly recreated tropical islands, war-torn African savannahs or frosty Himalayan highlands. In the Assassin’s Creed franchise, you carry out stealthy assassinations on the rooftops of painstakingly recreated Renaissance-era Florence, revolutionary Paris and 18th-century Boston. But what if you could be unloading rocket launchers in the deserts of Inner Mongolia? Or lurking armed to the teeth in the shadows of the Great Wall? These games franchises are now partly owned by Chinese conglomerate Tencent, and the Chinese market is swinging wide open.   Macro-transactions Tencent is Asia's most valuable company