Back in November 2012, mega-popular Korean chat app KakaoTalk opened its gaming platform inside the Japanese version, starting with three Android titles (Anipang, Tap Tap Blitz, and Puzzle Zoo Zoo).
Today operator Kakao Japan, which is 50% owned by Yahoo Japan, expanded said platform to iOS and added a total of four titles to the overall line-up.
Here’s a complete list of all KakaoTalk-powered games in Japan.
The Android-only games are:
- Anipang (by SundayToz)
- Crossword Puzzle (by AfreecaTV)
Games now available on KakaoTalk for iOS as well as Android are:
- Tap Tap Blitz (by Andromeda Games)
- Puzzle Zoo Zoo (by Nexon)
- Sushi Panic (by One Of Them)
- Zoo Zoo Bubble (by PNIX Games)
One game, Pocket Colony, from Japan-based Cocone, is only available on iOS.
Meanwhile, The Nikkei is reporting that Kakao Japan plans to roll out a total of 100 games on its platform by the end of 2013.
The newspaper also writes that the app currently counts 9 million users in Japan, which isn’t bad but a far cry from LINE‘s 41 million.
There can be no doubt that Japanese social gaming powerhouses GREE and Mobage operator DeNA will face increased competition from KakaoTalk, LINE, NTT Docomo’s dgame, and – most importantly – the rapidly growing iOS and Google Play platforms this year.
I strongly believe that 2012 was the last year of the duopoly that dominated mobile and social gaming in Japan for about 5 years and that the industry will see the formation of an oligopoly with about half a dozen players going forward.
