We just reported that electronic chain-store Yodobashi Camera began the same day delivery around Tokyo on weekend. I saw it as the race for better service level against its competitors, including Amazon Japan.

On September 5, Amazon Japan started a new delivery option “Hatsubaibi Todoke”(= deliver on the release day) initially with selected games, Gamespot Japan reported [J].

Amazon Japan’s top page is boasting this “Hatubaibi Todoke” at the top center,

The option cost 350 yen($4.5) unless you are Amazon Japan prime member. Amazon Japan reportedly will add more products for this option. It makes sense for me as gamers are the people who really want to get and play the products as earliest as they can do. By guaranteeing the release date delivery, more people who bought the newly released game at big retails (like Yodobashi Camera!) may turn to Amazon.

Then today, September 6, Yodobashi Camera puts a big banner on its site top, which says “Delivery on the release day is nothing unusual on Yodobashi for long”.

It says that Yodobashi’s online mall has been shipping all pre-ordered products, not only games but also CD/DVD/Blue-lay and other electronics appliances which are labeled so, for free with no strings.

They do not mention Amazon at all, which is natural in Japanese business practice, but it is clear that they set up this new informational campaign against whom. See how Yodobashi’s banner uses the same color and font as Amazon Japan’s, and adds their texts over it. It’s funny.

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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photo by Netafull

Popular blog Netafull reported [J] that Risa Nakanishi (@BuzzTum), who has been serving for Yahoo! Japan for 12 years, sometimes called “PR Diva”, (as Yahoo! Japan has been the champion last decade) one of the center figure of Japanese web industry, left Yahoo! and joined Digital Garage(DG), the most known by its founder Joi Itoh.

On the interview, she told her jobs in Yahoo! Japan, including promotion of early days Yahoo! Auction (which killed eBay Japan), Yahoo! Search, and bloggers relation.

At DG, Risa told that she keep working as PR with projects like DG-assisting imported foreign services like Twitter and LinkedIn, global start-up incubation program Open Network Lab, etc.

As Risa said to Netafull, Digital Garage is a company who has been well known to industry people with long history, but not really popular to Japanese consumers when comparing to Yahoo! Japan. Her join may make the company’s image spread for more people who have not known them.

She also mentioned a little bit on the water server removal issue when she asked why she changed job.

She seems enjoying the buzz caused by this announcement. Here is the list of hundreds messages sent to her [J].

Tags: Japan, Person by Akky Akimoto
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Cyber Agent’s American subsidiary company CyberAgent America, Inc. has released the game application “Coin Pusher Mafia” for iPhone.  Download is free.
“Coin Pusher Mafia” is Cyber Agent’s second released smartphone game application title.  It’s a combination between a mafia game and a slot machine game, and along with the previously released “Zombie Restaurant,” [J] it works together with the game community “GAMEWAVE.”
Download Coin Pusher Mafia here:

Translation licensed by VSMedia [J]

Tags: Japan, Social game by Chiho Komoriya
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