By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
“Persona 3 Social”, the first social game in the famous RPG series Persona, was released back in August 2010 for Mobage, before publisher Index started offering the title on GREE for feature phones and Yahoo Mobage. And now Index released the game for GREE on smartphones (Persona 3...
Yet another video game is going social: For Japanese feature phones, Sega actually rolled out the GREE version of Ryuu Ga Gotoku (Yakuza), a famous action-adventure series, back in February. And today GREE finally announced the iPhone version of Yakuza, which can be started directly from the iPhone...
Yet another big console title has landed on a mobile social gaming platform: this time, it’s Bust A Move (aka “Puzzle Bobble”), a puzzle game from Taito (and one of my favorite games ever). The title (announced today and dubbed “New Puzzle Bobble Lite for GREE”) is a...
CyberAgent continues to expand its social gaming business: the company announced “Oide yo! Ramenya-san” for Mixi today, a ramen restaurant simulation. It’s actually the second game of its kind for CyberAgent: there’s also a very similar ramen restaurant simulation on Mobage...
Business social network LinkedIn is a juggernaut on a quite a few levels, but as many sites of its kind, it never gained traction in Japan. The American company started working on a Japanese localization (in February this year) before announcing a full-fledged entry into the local market back in...
Japan’s e-commerce juggernaut Rakuten and the country’s 2nd largest telco KDDI au have announced a strategic linkup focused on electronic money today. Under the agreement, Rakuten’s Edy electronic money system will be combined with KDDI au’s mobile checkout infrastructure...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry