By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
The Nikkei just reported in its online edition that GREE will probably hit US$520 million in sales last quarter (three months through December 31). As if this wasn’t impressive enough, the paper says GREE is expecting operating profit to balloon to US$260 million. If the report turns out to...
Sega has closed down one of the most ambitious mobile social games in Japan, Shenmue City (Shenmue Gai), on Mobage. The game’s developer, Ysnet, actually posted a two-liner thanking players on December 26 on the official homepage of the title. Shenmue City was launched amid much fanfare at...
GREE, DeNA‘s Mobage, Yahoo Mobage, Mixi, Hangame: there’s certainly no shortage of social game platform providers in Japan, and the same is true for social game content providers (I am estimating there are around 500 of these active in this country). But who is actually playing these...
As predicted, Capcom’s “Monhan Tankenki Maboroshi no Shima”, a social game based on the company’s action RPG series Monster Hunter, continues to do well on GREE. The title was announced last month, launched on GREE on December 19, quickly shot up to No. 4 on the ranking of the most...
DeNA today announced that Sega has chosen Mobage to launch the online version of super-successful (and pretty awesome) mobile RPG Kingdom Conquest. Available on iOS and Android, the title just hit 2 million downloads, and it’s rumored to be a big moneymaker for Sega. The social game version...
Comcept, the company founded by famous video game creator Keiji Inafune, has released its first social game on GREE for Android today. The title, dubbed “Dr. Momo’s Island”, was co-developed with Index. The much anticipated game has a weird story: players take on the role of Dr...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry