Razer and Tencent are no strangers to the gaming industry. The former has an established presence in gaming hardware (and now smartphones) while the latter is known for developing fan favourites such as PUBG Mobile. Both companies are now collaborating to create ‘optimised’ content tailor-made for the Razer Phone. The Razer Phone and Razer Phone 2, despite their powerful hardware, lack the titles that can take full advantage of their high-refresh rate panels.
This collaboration will focus on three areas, hardware, software, and services. Both Razer phones run top-of-the-line hardware and Tencent wants to take advantage of that. Tencent will also release games optimised for the Razer Phone via their in-house store Cortex. There is also a possibility of Razer’s RGB lighting and THX Spatial Audio getting tethered with Tencent’s games. According to their press release:
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As part of the collaboration, Tencent and Razer will also explore additional monetization opportunities for mobile gaming including integrating Razer services and more. Mobile gaming keeps growing at an incredible pace and at Razer, we are poised to be a leader in the segment. We have been working with Tencent since 2008 and are excited to now enter into a collaboration with them to spearhead future innovation in the space,” said Min-Liang Tan, Co-Founder and CEO of Razer. “With the strengths of Tencent and Razer combined, we are going to supercharge the mobile gaming industry.”
It is unclear what the ‘monetization opportunities’ mean at this point. It could be something as simple as a deeper integration between both of their stores’ with both getting a slice of the pie. Or Razer and Tencent could use your phone to mine crypto. I’d dismiss the notion as absurd, had Razer not pitched the idea to their desktop users unironically. The press release doesn’t reveal any more details about the endeavour, but some details should emerge soon-ish.
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