As the years have gone by, the gaming scene has experienced plenty of notable business partnerships, including, very recently, a rumored close business relationship between Microsoft and Nintendo. In an unforeseen turn of events, lifestyle brand Sanrio, the company behind the character of Hello Kitty, and the Tetris brand will soon be teaming up for game development and merchandising collaboration.
In an official press release straight from the The Tetris Company, the collaborative effort between the two successful brands is discussed more at length. It is stated that there is a "multi-year partnership," which is intended to bring new co-produced games and merchandise to consumers. Their first joint effort will be coming to audiences in the form of an online game, which will release on June 3.
Furthermore, The Tetris Company states that "the companies will introduce a new co-branded style guide at Licensing Expo." Categories for the style guide will include cosmetics, clothing, and accessories, among other items. Also, emphasizing that the partnership has come about during the 45th and 35th anniversaries of Hello Kitty and Tetris, respectively, CEO and President of Blue Planet Software Maya Rogers, the "sole agent for the Tetris brand," spoke enthusiastically about the upcoming partnership. She stated that Sanrio characters such as Hello Kitty have "an incredible history among girls and women" and added the "pairing of these two brands to create games, novelties and fashion items is an incredible opportunity that we think will have great appeal with fans worldwide.”
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As of right now, it should be established that, while there is a project in the works slated for June 3, as mentioned previously, not too many details have not been shed about it. However, as teased by a Twitter post from the Tetris brand, the online game may be a Hello Kitty-themed Tetris game.
While it will be nice for fans of both Sanrio brands and the Tetris franchise to experience something new and fresh via the partnership, this does appear to be an odd combination. Seemingly, one of the more connective links here is that the two are celebrating impressive anniversaries, whose opportunity has been seized upon by the Tetris brand in the form of the Switch exclusive Tetris 99.
In any case, the hope going forward, as expressed by Maya Rogers, is that the two companies succeed in creating amazing and addictive games on a cooperative basis and pay respect to the beloved franchises brought to the forefront by Sanrio and the Tetris brand.