By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Back in September 2011, I first made my opinion public that both Mobage operator DeNA as well as GREE will not be able to replicate the tremendous success they have seen in Japan elsewhere, that Japan was unique. That was the time when both companies made a big push to bring their platforms into...
Japanese business daily The Nikkei recently published a story on the PS4 in which it showed a chart that compares the sales of social games with those of console games (hard- and software) in Japan since 2007/2008. I found it interesting enough to post it below. It visualizes the unbelievable...
The list of publicly traded mobile game developers in Japan is about to get longer: Tokyo-based Alt Plus got the approval to go IPO at the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s “Mothers” market for startup companies on Wednesday. Alt Plus will be listed under code 3672 on March 14. The company...
The Puzzle & Dragons hype in Japan continues: the country’s top smartphone game has crossed the 8 million-user mark on January 30, maker GungHo revealed yesterday. Even though Puzzle & Dragons is out in English on both on iOS and Android since last year, success abroad has been...
DeNA released their results for the third quarter (ending December 31, 2012) of fiscal 2012 today, and things are looking pretty good for the Mobage operator overall. As usual, I could copy and paste the whole presentation on the new numbers here, but the major bullet point is that revenue...
Big shake-up at Tokyo-based NHN Japan today: the LINE operator and Japanese subsidiary of Korean web powerhouse NHN is splitting up into 2 different companies. The basic idea is to separate the gaming from the web service business. NHN Japan says that going forward its gaming section will operate...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry