By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
PC-based social games are on the rise in Japan: DeNA announced that Yahoo Mobage, the social gaming platform it operates with Yahoo Japan, now has 3 million users. It took Yahoo Mobage 51 days to get to the first million members, 53 more days to add another one million and now another 61 days to...
GREE today announced it has scored yet another exclusive social game: following Yakuza and Fist Of The North Star, Electronic Arts has chosen GREE for its first social game to be released in Japan. EA Mobile/Playfish has started offering “Minna No Sim City” (Everybody’s Sim City)...
GREE gets another dating simulation: Koi Cafe Nikki (Love Cafe Diary) is a social game designed for an “adult audience” (but does not offer sexual content). The difference to existing games in this genre is that the female players get to date grown-ups, and not, which is more commen...
Digital Garage has made an investment in an American startup again: TechCrunch reported that DG is part of a group of (star) investors who injected $1.7 million in San Francisco-based online ad startup ContextLogic. Terms of the deal, an angel investment, weren’t disclosed. ContextLogic is...
YouTube yesterday said that its Japanese site will live-stream the 12th Tokyo Girls Collection fashion show as an official partner. Viewers will be able to watch the show from 2pm until 10pm tomorrow (Japanese time). Tokyo Girls Collection is a bi-annual fashion show (featuring celebrity models)...
Just a small note, but it was worth a press release for Kakaku and shows that Facebook is becoming more and more relevant for e-commerce companies in Japan: Kakaku now has a fan page on Facebook. So far, not even 200 people have pushed the “like” button and the news feed just shows some...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry