By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
In their latest financial report, Mixi didn’t only report numbers but also announced a major overhaul of its app platform for November 15. It’s the most radical revamp of that section ever and is likely to benefit social game makers. The basic idea is to split the apps section into two...
DeNA is buying Yokohama-based pro baseball team BayStars, after all. Pending approval (see below), the Mobage company will acquire a 66.92% Yokohama BayStars Baseball Club, Inc. for 6.5 billion yen (US$83.2 million). DeNA’s global PR office has sent the following (unofficial) summary of the...
Mixi has released the financial report for the second quarter of fiscal 2011 (July to September), and in a nutshell, things aren’t looking too good for Japan’s biggest social network: while sales have slightly (1.8%) risen to US$39.66 million, operating profit fell 16.8% to US$6.54...
Mixi has announced it acquired Kanagawa-based smartphone development company Conit for an undisclosed sum. Conit, which was established in 2008, started making games for various platforms (iOS, GREE, Mobage, etc.) before moving towards B2B products, i.e. smartphone billing solutions. The company...
GREE has announced it will buy MARS, a Tokyo-based smartphone development company, this month. MARS spin-off venture FEYNMAN, which offers a billing solution for smartphone apps, will be part of the deal, too. GREE says it hopes to ” to strengthen its development capability for smartphone...
Among the big Japanese web companies, Cyberagent is the most aggressive one when it comes to investing in startups in Japan and abroad (via CyberAgent Ventures). Now GREE also says it will set up a wholly-owned subsidiary, GREE Ventures, that will invest in web (not only gaming) startups worldwide...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry