By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
From time to time, Japanese business daily The Nikkei reveals financials before listed companies do in their quarterly reports or other statements. Today, the newspaper says it has learned that GREE (3632) will likely announce that sales and profit went down in the April-June period, both year-on...
It has become very, very silent about comm, the chat app DeNA started rolling out in October last year. According to the last official word from the Mobage operator, a few months ago, the app racked up a total of 5 million users. That number is sure higher now (comm has been advertised on TV in...
Japan’s top messenger app LINE (160 million users worldwide and counting) is taking it very slow with its in-app gaming platform. Even though the first LINE-powered titles were rolled out in summer last year, the total number of such games available is still below 30. LINE Corp. CEO Morikawa...
“Line Play”, the virtual world NHN Japan released in Japan back in November 2012 and that integrates with chat app LINE on smartphones, is now offering games. The first title is called “Tsuri Tomo”, hit LINE Play on Friday, and is currently available in Japanese only (the LINE-powered...
I was recently asked by Eric Seufert, marketing and mobile user acquisition specialist at Grey Area in Helsinki, to give an interview on Japan’s mobile and social gaming scene. Eric has an excellent blog, on which he analyzes various aspects of the mobile industry, most recently the gaming...
There can be no discussion that in Japan, LINE is the king of chat apps at the moment. Maker NHN Japan, which now operates the service under a new company called LINE Corp., should be announcing 50 million domestic users very soon. If there is one competitor, it’s certainly Korean chat app...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry