By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
The answer to the question is that the mobile web is huge in Japan (90 million mobile web subscribers), and it has always been. Japanese people basically grew up using the web not on PCs but rather on cell phones. Growth began when NTT Docomo, Japan’s biggest cell phone carrier, introduced a...
The term coworking is known over here (for example, there is a Wikipedia entry in Japanese on the subject: ;), but there is definitely no scene at this point. More information and pictures on coworking spaces in Tokyo in particular can be found here: Due to space limitations and high rents, there...
Three top e-commerce entrepreneurs from Japan: 1) Hiroshi Mikitani from Rakuten (). $10 billion market cap. 2) Minoru Tanaka from Kakaku.com () $1.5 billion market cap. 3) Teruhide Sato from Netprice (;) $70 million market cap. Note: Mikitani and Sato started their e-commerce platforms by...
Here is the link to a column I wrote on the role of 3D for Japan’s electronics industry for the journal for the American Chamber Of Commerce in Japan. Excerpt: The way its proponents spin it, 3D will be the next big thing not only in movie theaters, but in home electronics as well. One...
I answered a related question (What is the compensation rate for game development industry roles in Japan? ) earlier. The answer contains some anecdoctal horror stories of people with monthly salaries to the tune of $1,500 and some other (more solid) data. I can think of these reasons as to why the...
It’s true that in comparison to the hardware/electronics/gadget and other sectors, the Japanese web industry is relatively weak from a global perspective. I think though the industry is better than its reputation. There are three factors at play here: language, market size and the importance...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry