By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Mixi announced it added a new feature to Mixi Pages, its version of Facebook pages for individuals, companies or celebrities to broadcast information and promote themselves (Mixi introduced the feature in September). Owners of sites can now track the number page views, unique users, followers...
LinkedIn may have under half a million Japan-based users, but that didn’t stop the company to offer their user interface in Japanese. The new version went live on Thursday. LinkedIn’s managing director of Asia-Pacific and Japan Arvind Rajan said Japanese is the 10th language the site...
GREE has announced it bought a 8.3% stake in Mind Palette, a Tokyo-based startup that was established just in November 2010 (and is backed by CyberAgent Ventures). Mind Palette is focusing on one product at the moment: Snapeee, a picture-based social network that lets users add cute and funny...
Mega-popular Japanese girl group AKB48 is getting a social game: GREE announced that the 48 members of the band will be the main characters in a social card game that will be released on October 25 on GREE for Japanese feature phones. The title, dubbed AKB48 Stage Fighter, will offer 48 different...
Japanese video game makers are increasingly going social games, and Capcom hasn’t been an exception. It’s the maker that boasts the most international exposure in the mobile (social) gaming field, thanks to titles like Smurf’s Village and others. In an interview with Bloomberg...
GREE is again preparing to take legal action against DeNA, following a lawsuit from September 2009 (when GREE accused its competitor of copying one of their hit games). This time, GREE says DeNA is blocking access to games made by third-party developers. The accusation isn’t really new: in...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry