Sony Amplifies Gaming Rivalry With Microsoft In China - Sony Group (NYSE:SONY)

Sony Group Corp SONY plans to expand a program to identify and incubate Chinese-made games in a race with Microsoft Corp MSFT to tap China's gaming market, Reuters reports.
The program will invest more than 1 million yuan ($140,080) in each game it enrolls, and will fund not only small teams but also big teams with dozens of engineers or more, Bao Bo, Sony's director of China game production, said.
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The Japanese tech giant's plans were made public during an event live-streamed from the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu to re-launch the China Hero Project program, which ground to a halt due to COVID-19.
"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 said it would be the publisher of Lost Soul Aside and Convallaria, two games enrolled in the previous two seasons.
The China Hero Project launched its first two batches of games in 2017 and 2019 and has supported 17 titles, of which seven have reached the market.
Sony sells the PlayStation (PS) consoles in China, where people traditionally prefer playing mobile-based games.
Tatsuo Eguchi, president of SIE Shanghai, said that Sony's goal is to sell twice as many PS5 consoles as it had for the PS4 and believed the China Hero Project could help meet this goal.
Sony reported second-quarter FY22 sales growth of 16% year-on-year to ¥2.75 trillion. Game & Network Services revenue increased 12% Y/Y to ¥720.7 billion.
Sony sold 3.3 million PS5 units in the quarter, the same as the previous year.
Price Action: SONY shares traded higher by 2.57% at $81.12 on the last check Tuesday.

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