By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Tokyo-based mobile social games maker Mobile Factory (English company website) announced a new game that’s now available on GREE for feature phones in Japan. What’s special about “Eki Dash” is that it’s a location-based social game (although it’s not the first of...
That was quick: Dwango today announced they will close Nicoga, a casual gaming service built on top of their super-popular video sharing platform Nico Nico Douga. Nicoga was started in September 2010 and will cease to exist on April 27 this year. Nicoga is still accessible through Nico Nico...
One day before the disastrous earthquake hit Japan, GREE announced the release of a new potential hit title, namely 100 Man Shin Sangoku Musou (known as Dynasty Warriors in the west). The game series has a 14-year history on consoles. Like many of its console counterparts on, the GREE version is a...
Google offers it, now Yahoo Japan offers it, too (on smartphones): voice search. Yahoo Japan Labs today released an iPhone app [iTunes link] on the Japanese App Store that lets users access the site via voice controls. In this video (not embeddable), you can see the user “asking” for...
Japan’s mobile social gaming giants continue their global expansion. After having opened an office in San Francisco in January, GREE today announced it will establish offices in Singapore, Beijing and London this spring. In Singapore, GREE acquired a stake in mobile social network mig33 in...
I am currently in Germany, following a tough trip to Austin (for SXSW 2011) I took after the big earthquake hit Japan: I spent 51 hours at the Tokyo airport, started suffering from sudden hear loss, got “emergency” medical treatment in a hospital near the airport, etc. etc. But...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry