GREE today announced it has entered a partnership with famed 3D game development tool maker Unity from San Francisco. Under the deal, GREE has started to offer the so-called “Unity Plugin for GREE” to social game developers providing titles to the platform. The plugin is part of the...
Yahoo Mobage Gets 3D Virtual World Pico Pico Town
Yahoo Mobage, Yahoo Japan’s and DeNA’s social game platform on the PC, is getting more and more games. One candidate for a future hit title isn’t a social game but a 3D virtual world called Pico Pico Town. Made by DeNA itself, Pico Pico Town went live today in beta. There are a total of 5...
On The Role Of 3D For Japan’s Electronics Makers
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...
Japan’s Mobile Gaming Market Grows To US$12 Billion
Japan’s Mobile Content Forum (MCF), an industry association, just reported that Japan’s market size for mobile games has reached the equivalent of US$12 billion in 2021. (Due to the recent and drastic yen-dollar currency fluctuation*, the sum in US$ is smaller than last year.) The...
Podcast On Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5 and Tencent Games
I was recently interviewed by my friend Casey Lau for his new podcast series on digital entertainment and media technology, Sandwich Society. Not too surprisingly, the 30 minutes are on the game industry, i.e. the upcoming launch of the PlayStation 5, what will happen with Nintendo and the Switch...
THE GAME BUSINESS IN 2019 (PREDICTION)
Game industry website GamesIndustry.biz recently asked me for some personal predictions for the gaming business in 2019. Here is an repost from my contribution to their article: Last year I predicted: 2018 will be another successful year for Nintendo: Largely correct with Nintendo’s year-end...