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December 2010 Japan IT Links (Part 1)


Early part of December news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 2)

We introduced Disqus commenting system on Asiajin, and hoping to have more conversations with you now.

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

If you want to know any specific news more, but unable to find them in other English blog/media, please let us know.

Tags: Japan IT Links by Akky Akimoto
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Gree Opens English Corporate Site – How About Others?


Gree has launched its company site in English today.

It is a recent trend for big three social networking services to show their interest in international market. All of Gree, Mobage-Town and Mixi want more third party game/app development companies, and when competition is tough in Japan, of course it is a good option to find development companies from oversea. Gree’s new English site must be part of their international strategy.

DeNA, Mobage-Town company, has been using English site, at least since 2007. Their English site has more information. (though the top page seems not spell-checked)

Mixi, which does not have a company English site, however has a developer site for English speakers.

But after switching English-Japanese couple of times, I became to be unable to see English pages.

As you see on my posts, I am not capable to tell how good (or bad) their English are. Do you think that having any English page is better than not having it? How much will it affect your business?

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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GTA Chinatown Wars Released On Japanese App Store As More Western Developers Use iPhone to Penetrate Insular Games Market


Yesterday, Rockstar Games released a fully localized version of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the Japanese app store as more Western game brands invest in localizing and releasing iPhone apps. This comes at an opportune time for many Western gaming brands – not only is the Japanese games market showing signs of becoming increasingly insular  on the part of both consumers and developers, the market size is shrinking as well. Compared to the incredible success of Playstation 2 (which sold a lifetime 25 million units), the Playstation 3 has been a failure having just recently limped past 6 million units. At the same time, the most popular titles of the year in video games were home-grown mega-titles like Pocket Monster Black & White and Dragon quest- a clear shift from the types of games Western brands tend to develop. In fact, within the top 50 games of the year, not a single Western title has made it to the list. To make things worse, Namco-Bandai Holdings has announced that they will shift development back towards the Japanese market – which makes up 65% of their total revenue. While a Japanese developer like Square Enix can grab a million unit sales with a game of mediocre reception- many Western game titles, even those with international critical acclaim and millions of sales worldwide, consider 100,000 to be a great success. In essence, the market conditions are bleak for many western gaming brands.

The incredible rise of the iPhone in Japan now appears to be a silver lining for these brands. According to reports by the Mainichi Shinbun yesterday, the iPhone was the 5th most popular cellphone in Japan during the July – Sept sales period at a 12.2% market share. The app store is quickly becoming an exciting, competitive space with more blogs and websites dedicated to showcasing the latest apps to a rapidly growing consumer base. This surge has been picked up by global media like the Associated Press as well, who recently covered the growing excitement of Western developers for the Japanese iPhone market.

While a couple Japanese titles from Capcom or Konami exist on the app store, the most popular paid apps across all genres are dominated by Western game companies like Electronic Arts and Epic Games. November and December saw the release of nearly two dozen fully localized game titles on the app store by Western publishers. Beyond release, Electronic Arts is currently holding a 90% discount campaign for apps which they have extended to Japan. More than any other market – this will have a big impact for EA’s exposure among both gaming and non-gamer consumers in Japan.

For gamers – iPhone game development is also progressing to a level where the excitement of a traditional game is mixed with the bite-size consumption of a mobile phone. This fully localized version of GTA Chinatown Wars brings together the infamous gameplay and storytelling of the original Grand Theft Auto series, with mobile specific features like the addition of touch controls and the integration of music playlists from your iPod. With more Japanese consumers embracing this new form of gaming – its no wonder companies like Rockstar Games are bringing fully localized versions of their games to Japanese market. While the conversion from mobile to console gaming is still unclear in Japan, one can hope that the exposure of Japanese gamers to a different style of storytelling and gameplay will broaden their tastes and give Western game brands a way to penetrate Japan’s insular gaming market.

Tags: Japan by Dominic K. Gallello
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Video: DeNA CEO Tomoko Namba’s Interview at LeWeb’10


DeNA logo

Tomoko Namba, the CEO of Japanese mobile social gaming giant DeNA (and one of my personal heroes), gave a pretty interesting interview at web industry conference LeWeb’10 earlier this month. LeWeb organizer Loic LeMeur asked her for a full 20 minutes about her company’s history, present and future plans

Namba, speaking in excellent English, doesn’t reveal any secrets, but especially for those of you unfamiliar with Japan’s huge mobile social gaming sector (the biggest in the world), the interview should be relevant. She mainly speaks about Mobage, DeNA’s mobile social gaming platform (which she repeatedly calls a “social network” by the way).

What’s particularly interesting is her mentioning that

  • her 99% domestic and mobile company boasts a US$4 billion market cap at the Tokyo Stock Exchange
  • there is no “Zynga for smartphones” yet
  • Mobage makes an insane US$1.2 billion revenue with 22 million members
  • DeNA, unlike Zynga, sees itself as an open platform provider (DeNA doubles as a provider of games on its own platform, so Mobage is more like Facebook and Zynga rolled into one)
  • her company will continue to globalize, as Japan’s mobile industry is rapidly moving towards smartphones

Here’s the interview:

Tags: Japan, Social game, Video by Serkan Toto
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51% Of Japanese Have No “Close Friend” On Their Social Network Friends List


Microsoft Advertising reported that a social media usage research conducted by Microsoft in Asia-Pacific(APAC) 11 countries and regions.

According to about 3,000 answering online to the questions (375 of them are Japanese), average APAC users are using 3 social networking services. They think only one-forth of their friends list are their close friends. 51% of Japanese answered none of their social network friends were their close friends.

Another interesting difference between Japanese users and other APAC countries is that the primary purpose of personal e-mail account is to contact with family and friends in most countries, whilst for Japanese it is primarily for receiving news alerts.

The Japanese report tells that the more detail is available in English site SaveSocialEnergy.com, but I could not find it on there.

See Also:

9 Out Of 10 Japanese Mobile Users Disinclined For Using Real Name

30% Japanese Sends E-Mail First To Ask If They Can Make Phone Call

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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