FILE PHOTO: Nintendo's game character Super Mario is seen on a screen at the presentation ceremony of Nintendo's new game console Switch in Tokyo, Japan January 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
Tencent Holdings Ltd. has won approval to distribute Nintendo Co.’s Switch console version of Super Mario U, according to a notice on the website of the China’s Guangdong provincial culture and tourism department. Nintendo’s
A Nintendo spokesman confirmed that Tencent had applied for the sale of Switch hardware, without elaborating further. Earlier this year the Kyoto-based company unveiled new games for the console to revive slumping sales. Nintendo’s American depositary receipts jumped 13 percent, the most since September 2016, on the news.
Tencent could prove a valuable ally in the world’s largest gaming market. In January, Nintendo cut its outlook for annual Switch shipments, the strongest sign yet that the hybrid console is struggling to attract a wider swath of users and become a worthy successor to the Wii. Switch shipments for the fiscal year through March, compared with its prior outlook for 20 million units and analysts’ average prediction for 18 million.
