By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
The Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) is probably one of the largest (if not the largest) of its kind worldwide (last year, I was fortunate to participate as a moderator and judge). During the GMIC 2011 (which ended yesterday), DeNA COO Isao Moriyasu gave a speech in which he unveiled a...
Rakuten president Hiroshi Mikitani said in an interview he gave to The Nikkei that his company will enter a handful of countries in Europe plus Brazil and India this year. According to Mikitani, further acquisitions in those markets are possible, too. These countries would follow Japan, China...
CyberAgent (its investment subsidiary CyberAgent Ventures, to be more precise) has invested $1 million in iPeen, a Taiwanese e-commerce site. iPeen offers information on a total of 85,000 Taiwanese restaurants and offers discount coupons to its members. Taiwanese news site Focus Taiwan reports that...
Another hit video game series get the social game treatment: SNK Playmore today announced it has released “The King Of Fighters Battle Festa” on Mobage (King Of Fighters is one of the most famous fighting game series of all time). SNK says that in order to make the game social, Mobage...
This is probably one of the biggest wins (content-wise) for DeNA in recent months: Sega is planning to bring one of the biggest brands for role-playing games out there, Phantasy Star, to Mobage. Dubbed Phantasy Star Eternal Hunters, the social game was exclusively developed for Mobage for Japanese...
Earlier this month, DeNA and CyberAgent announced the launch of an ad network specifically for the smartphone versions of Mobage (DeNA’s mobile social game platform) and Ameba (CyberAgent’s blogging and social networking platform). The joint venture, which is 51% owned by CyberAgent and 49% by...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry