By CHENG Lu
Tech giant Tencent said on Thursday it is firing members of its extended reality gaming unit, which only formed in June last year.
Staff have been given two months to find internal or external jobs. The company is not giving up on ER technology but will go in new directions.
The ER unit was led by senior vice president Steven Ma, also responsible for the international distribution of Tencent Games. NexT Studios’ boss SHEN Li was in charge of the business side.
When the ER unit made its high-profile debut, Ma promised to become an “industry benchmark” in VR products. The unit has fallen woefully far short of that target, barely registering in the industry at all. But five months later, Shen left Tencent.
Last year, Tencent was said to be taking over Black Shark, a niche smartphone maker focused on mobile games and VR equipment. But the merger quietly died out after Black Shark ran out of cash and was besieged by desperate ex-employees waiting for long overdue wages.
