TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the prevalent business stories in gaming. In today’s news: Tencent takes over China's streaming market with USD$262m Huya stake; Around 160,000 Nintendo accounts comprised in data beach; and Google abandons Stadia Base branding as it launches free tier.

Tencent takes over China's streaming market with USD$262m Huya stake

Chinese technology giant Tencent has purchased a controlling stake in the Twitch-like streaming service Huya - and as a result a dominant position in the market.

Earlier this month, Tencent exercised its option to purchase 16.5 million Class B ordinary shares of Huya from its parent JOYY, a social media platform. The deal came to approximately USD$262.6m (£211.2m).

This makes Tencent the largest shareholder of Huya, with voting power of at least 50.1%. Huya will continue to operate independently.

Two years ago, Tencent invested USD$461.6m (£371.3m) in Huya within the same 24 hours that it poured USD$632m (£508.3m) into rival streaming service Douyu.

The company now has controlling stakes in both Huya and Douyu, as well as operating its own games-centric livestreaming platform eGame. Tencent has become the dominant player in China's games streaming space. As part of the deal, Tencent's general manager for interactive entertainment Lingdon Huang has been appointed director and chairman of Huya's board of directors.

Around 160,000 Nintendo accounts comprised in data beach

Nintendo Japan today confirmed that around 160,000 users accounts have been illegally accessed by third-parties.

While no credit card information was exposed, affected users had their nickname, email address, date of birth, gender, and country data exposed.

Nintendo said there is currently no evidence of a breach to its databases, servers or services, but an investigation is still on-going.

As a precautionary measure, users will no longer be able to login using their Nintendo Network ID; all other sign-in options will remain available.

Nintendo will also be contacting affected users, advising them to reset their passwords and set-up two-factor authentication.

"During the investigation, in order to deter further attempts of unauthorised sign-ins, we will not reveal more information about the methods employed to gain unauthorised access," said the company in a statement.

"We apologise for the inconvenience and concerns caused to our customers, and we will continue working hard to safeguard the security of our users' data."

Google abandons Stadia Base branding as it launches free tier

Even though Google has effectively launched its free tier of Stadia, Stadia Base, it's no longer calling it that.

Earlier this month, Google announced it would offer two free months of Stadia Pro, which is normally a paid subscription service costing USD$9.99 per month.

As a part of that announcement, Google added that games purchased as a part of the free Stadia trial would remain accessible even for users who canceled their subscriptions after the two-month free period.

Users signing up for Google Stadia also now have an additional option at the end of the process, allowing them to opt-out of the two-month Stadia Pro trial and simply begin purchasing games through Stadia without signing up for Pro at all.

Google has additionally confirmed that users who let subscriptions lapse will still be able to purchase new games for Stadia, play them, and will have their resolution capped at 1080p as originally stated for Stadia Base -- with Pro subscribers able to play games in 4k.