By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Tokyo-based research firm Yano has released a chart that visualizes the size of the Japanese social gaming market between 2009 and 2013. According to Yano, the industry will grow to US$4.8 billion this year, a relatively modest plus from the US$4.3 billion the firm has calculated for 2012 (the...
In October last year, GREE caused quite a splash in the mobile and console gaming worlds with their announcement that they partnered up with Square Enix. The deal included a social reboot of popular (and awesome) 3DS game “The World Ends With You” and “Final Fantasy...
Japan’s most successful platform-free smartphone game Puzzle & Dragons is in the news again: the title, a mix between RPG and puzzle game, racked up 6 million downloads by December 31, 2012, maker GungHo is reporting. Puzzle & Dragons was launched in Japan on iOS in February and on Android...
Yesterday was a big day for DeNA: the Mobage operator yesterday unveiled a new corporate logo and announced it has changed its brand identity on a global scale. The company explains: DeNA’s new corporate logo expresses the company’s revamped corporate slogan: “Delight and Impact...
Stuck between consoles and mobile devices, PC gaming has never played a big role in Japan. The same has been true on the social front where Japanese makers focused on phones from the get-go, often leaving out the PC side altogether. One notable exception is Yahoo Mobage, a social gaming platform...
About 2 weeks ago, Bandai Namco revealed it is working on the first social game based on the popular Wizardry RPG series (which is especially popular in Japan). Dubbed “Wizardry – The Demon Tower Wars”, the F2P title is still scheduled to hit iPhone/iPod touch next month –...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry