By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
One of the biggest third-party social gaming companies in Japan (along Konami, gloops, Klab, etc.) is Tokyo-based gumi. The startup has just posted a pretty unusual and “open” announcement on its website. According to the release, gumi generated a whopping 100 million Yen in virtual...
TechCrunch editor-in-chief Erick Schonfeld spent some days in Tokyo earlier this week for the TechCrunch Tokyo 2011 conference, which I attended and GREE CEO Yoshikazu was invited for as a speaker. Here is an interview with Tanaka that Schonfeld did at the day of the event (this week Tuesday)...
When DeNA announced that Square Enix is planning a social game based on Final Fantasy for Mobage back in October, not too many details were made public. The plan is now to release the game, titled Final Fantasy Brigade, as a beta version in the middle of this month and then push out a full release...
Japan’s biggest real-identity social network Mixi and Twitter Japan have officially announced that partnership that was leaked to the press a few days ago. The goal is to develop new products and advertising services, with Mixi hinting at a function that may make it possible for their users...
After announcing the deal last month, DeNA and major Korean online portal Daum signed a partnership agreement to bring Mobage to users in South Korea via Daum’s portal and mobile apps. DeNA Seoul, a subsidiary DeNA proper set up in June this year, is supposed to manage Mobage’s entry...
DeNA has been fighting, but the company finally announced today that the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB) approved the planned acquisition of a 66.92% stake in Yokohama BayStars, a professional baseball team. The green light from the organization was expected to come a few weeks ago...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry