By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
BDNA, the joint venture that Mobage operator DeNA (2432) and Namco Bandai (7832) launched in 2011 and that was rebranded to BNDeNA in 2012, is ending on March 31 this year. The news isn’t coming as a big surprise, for a few reasons. First, BNDeNA has released pretty solid games such as Gundam...
One current trend to be observed Japan’s mobile gaming industry is that the era of the classic card battler genre is coming to an end. In its place, “classic” RPGs with a card battle and other social elements are starting to pop up as of late, often with impressive production...
Social networking services in Japan never really put much emphasis on chatting for several reasons: even the biggest homegrown social network Mixi (2121) waited years before releasing such a feature in 2012. Mixi’s move was caused by the meteoric rise of LINE, and other social services...
Colopl (3668), the Tokyo-based company which I recently profiled as the biggest mobile game maker you never heard of, is on a roll. The stock has been going up and up as of late, making Colopl reach a staggering US$3.4 billion market cap today at the Tokyo Stock Exchange (it was even higher a few...
In today’s smartphone gaming world, GREE (3632) and Mobage operator DeNA (2432) have one thing in common: following numerous attempts, they both still have no big (first-party) app-based hit in their portfolio. As a reaction, during the last financial call, DeNA said it will pump out around...
Social gaming juggernaut GREE (3632) has clearly been having trouble in recent months: the last financial quarter was pretty weak (by GREE’s standards), some once promising first-party games have been quietly closed over the summer, international business was cut down on, and the...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry