Tencent and Nintendo to host Switch press conference in China on August 2 Shanghai event is the first official update since Tencent was cleared to distribute the console in China

Matthew Handrahan Editor-in-Chief Wednesday 24th July 2019 Share this article Share

Companies in this article Nintendo Tencent

Nintendo and Tencent are set more details on the planned launch of the Switch in China.

The two companies will host a joint press conference in Shanghai on August 2, where they will offer the first official update since announcing their partnership in April. Steven Ma, senior vice president of Tencent, and Nintendo executive Satoru Shibata will both be at the event.

On Twitter, the prominent Tokyo-based consultant Dr Serkan Toto said that the press conference arrives in the wake of Tencent "opening official, Switch-related social media accounts" in China.

Tencent was cleared to distribute the Switch in China back in April, and that caused a significant increase in Nintendo's share price.

Exactly how lucrative the Chinese market could be for the Switch remains to be seen. In May, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said "we don't expect our video game business in China to easily expand."

"The reality... is that the Chinese games market is almost all mobile games and PC games," he added. "The market for dedicated video game platforms has not been very large, so we recognise that this will be a new challenge for us."