By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
It took Dwango years to release Nico Nico Douga in English, and after they finally did today, all I can say is that it is hugely disappointing, even for a beta release. Dubbed Nico Nico (Dwango dropped the “Douga”, which is Japanese for movies), the site, in its current form, looks more...
Announced last month, available today: GREE finally released Tecmo Koei’s 100 Man Shin Sangoku Musou, a social game that mixes action with tactical elements. The title is a standalone/original game, but GREE says if owners of the PS3 version use a serial to be found inside the game’s...
Nikkei Trendy Net posted a pretty interesting 7-page interview with GREE‘s CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka earlier this week (the headline says that social games could become Japan’s next export hit). Here’s a rough summary of what he said in English (the interview is in Japanese only, of...
Something that I think not too many people are aware of: DeNA placed this ad for Mobage on the back cover of Famitsu Mobage, the printed magazine that was released in Japan a few days ago. DeNA plans to launch a rebranded version of its social games platform for smartphones this spring – not...
One of Japan’s largest maker of video games, Capcom, today announced it will enter the global social games market with a spin-off company called Beeline. The new business will initially be geographically focused on Japan and other countries in Asia. Capcom says they are eyeing the smartphone...
CyberAgent is continuing to invest in Asia-based web startups. According to Japanese business daily The Nikkei, CyberAgent just invested US$700,000 in Tokopedia, a Jakarta-based e-commerce start-up. This is the third investment the company received, following rounds involving Indonesia’s PT...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry