Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/technology/sony-expand-chinese-game-incubator-microsoft-head-to-head-2022-11-22/)
said on Tuesday it plans to expand a programme to identify and incubate Chinese-made games, in a race with Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) to tap China's gaming market.
The programme will invest more than 1 million yuan ($140,080) in each game it enrols, and will not only fund small teams but also big teams with dozens of engineers or more, Bao Bo, Sony's director of China game production, said.
"The scale of the third season will far exceed the previous two," Bao said, adding that Sony will publish some games and its PlayStation Studios will support enrolled projects.
Sony is now publishing Lost Soul Aside and Convallaria.
Its a risky market with what their government is doing both with video games and in general. Funding local studios directly seems like a good way to avoid some of that risk, although it'll be interesting to see how successful these games are outside of China.