By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
DeNA just announced it will establish a joint venture with video game powerhouse Bandai Namco Games on October 1. The new company, which will be called BDNA, will be based out of Tokyo and capitalized at 100 million yen (US$1.3 million). The idea is to combine Bandai Namco’s (decade long)...
Last month, I attended an event in San Francisco entitled “Social Networks and Games: Transition from Web to Mobile in Japan and the US” when I spent a few days in California. The event, which was organized by the local office of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) was very...
After GREE announced they will open an office in Singapore “this spring” (which never happened, but they are partnering with mig33 there), DeNA followed suit today: the company just announced the establishment of DeNA Asia in Singapore to drive forward the expansion of Mobage to other...
CyberAgent, through its US subsidiary CyberAgent America, has released a new iOS game that’s available in English (apart from Japanese). Coin Pusher Mafia [free on iTunes] is essentially a “virtual” version of a medal game that’s especially popular in Japanese arcades...
Apart from Foursquare, Twitter, and Skype, Sony is planning to integrate another online service for buyers of their upcoming next-generation handheld gaming system, the Playstation Vita: Nico Nico Douga. Sony and Dwango apparently inked a deal under which Nico Nico Douga will be one of the pre...
A few weeks ago, I gave a presentation on Japan’s web, mobile, and social gaming industries during an event in Tokyo (on search engines, e-commerce, social networks, mobile web usage and the basic structure of the social gaming industry in this country, to be more exact). Companies and...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry