In May 2021, after the Chinese government announced the Three-Child Policy aimed to encourage population growth, a segment of the Chinese youth responded in social media by mentioning that they are part of the 躺平 (tang ping, lit. “lying flat” or “lying down”) generation. The term is generally shunned and criticized due to its defeatist undertone, [...]
Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft launched their newest generation consoles in China, which is notable given all console hardware and software was banned in the country just seven years ago. According to Niko’s 2021 China Console Games Market Report, the console hardware and software market (legal + grey market) is set to reach $2.5 billion in 2025. [...]
The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) of the PRC, the regulatory body governing China’s video games market, announced publishing licenses (ISBN) for 43 imported (foreign) games on June 28, 2021. All games to be published in mainland China must first be granted an ISBN. The June 28 batch is a relief to many foreign game developers, as the previous batch of import titles had been on February 21, [...]
We are very fortunate to announce that Joost van Dreunen has joined Niko Partners as an advisor! Considered the top academic in the $160 billion video games industry, Joost van Dreunen teaches at the NYU Stern School of Business and is author of One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games. Previously he [...]
Cloud gaming can expand the addressable gaming audience and allow for any game to be played on any device. We have heard about this in the media for a few years, but most experts say cloud gaming will not take off in earnest until 5G is prevalent everywhere, and that a primary benefit will be to [...]
Asia is home to the largest audience of esports players and fans in the world. Esports has emerged as one of the strongest drivers of growth in the gaming industry, and nowhere is this more evident than Asia. For over two decades Asia has led global esports trends, serving as a predictor of developments that have [...]
Tencent is the world’s largest games company and continuing to grow organically as well as through investments and acquisitions. As of May 10, 2021, Tencent has closed 51 video game related deals, already more than the 31 game related deals closed in the whole of 2020 and over 5x more the number of game related deals [...]
NetEase (NTES) will announce its first quarter results for calendar 2021 on May 18th. NetEase is the #2 games company in China and was one of the only companies to report growth across both PC and mobile games in 2020. NetEase titles continued to perform well in Q1 2021 based on data from Niko’s China Games [...]
Tencent (HKG: 0700) will announce CY 2021 Q1 financial results on May 20th. Tencent is the #1 company by games revenue in the world and it has nearly 50% market share of China’s PC & mobile games market, according to Niko Partners. Tencent’s legacy titles continued to perform well in Q1 2021, based on data from [...]
Activision Blizzard (ATVI) will announce its first quarter results for calendar 2021 on May 4th. The China games market is increasingly important to ATVI, based on data from Niko’s China Games Streaming Tracker and our market insights. Niko's China Games Streaming Tracker is a tool we developed to track games on the largest game livestreaming platforms [...]
