DeNA, who runs Mobage, announced today [J] that it instituted legal action to demand Gree and its CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka an apology and compensation for the loss caused by Gree's press release and Tanaka's comments, which stated that DeNA did illegal business activities.

As we reported in December, DeNA expressed [J] the possibility of counter action against the legal action filed by Gree and KDDI (Bloomberg). Tanaka has been making comments around the case on many media, opinion ads on national newspaper and his Twitter [J].

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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Sorayume [J] has released the new social game for GREE “Chou Yome Taisen” (Super-Bride Battle).

“Super-Bride Battle” is a card battle type social game with many characters appearing from several popular game and anime works.  Going beyond the framework of their works, you use the various character and item cards to advance.  The character cards also have an avatar-ish component, and if you synthesize an item’s power with a card, its picture design including the costume and possessions will change.  The characters appearing are listed below.

“Shin･Koihime†Musou”
“SHUFFLE!”
“D.C. ~Da･Capo~”
“uni.”
“Suika”
“Otome Wa Oneesama Ni Koi Shiteru”

From now on this title is planned to be offered for Mobage and Mixi.

Translation authorized by VSMedia

Tags: Social game by Chiho Komoriya
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Koei Tecmo Games [J] and GREE [J] have released “Ichiokunin No Sangokushi” (100 Million People’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms), the Chinese version of Koei Tecmo’s social game “Hyaku Mannin No Sangokushi” (1 Million People’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms), for the Chinese Tencent’s feature phone / smartphone open platform “Tencent Wireless Open Platform for Community.”

“100 Million People’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms” is the first title installment for GREE’s Chinese social game market.  Tencent and GREE, since last January’s business partnership, have been undergoing localized business support for both companies’ collaborative resources and development platforms.  With mutual Social Network Services, development partners using “GREE Platform” and those using “Tencent Wireless Open Platform for Community” have opened the possibility for smooth development of social games.  “100 Million People’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms” is “Three Kingdoms” on the world stage; it’s a social game where users become a ruler and, while communicating with numerous other users, aim for unification of the playing field.  Users raise their level by clearing various quests, strengthen their army, and proceed to capture other users’ towns.  By forming partnerships with other users, you can strengthen your own army, so communication over the network acts as one point of capture.

Koei Tecmo Games and Gree will continue to advance their social game development into the Chinese market and into the future.

1 Million People’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms Handy Guide [J]

Translation authorized by VSmedia

Tags: China, Japan, Social game by Chiho Komoriya
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2011 is over - reason enough to take a look at some of the key trends that shaped Japan's web, mobile, and gaming industries last year.

I could think, in no particular order, of five major developments that made a significant impact last year:

March 11 Triple Disaster
The triple disaster that hit Japan on March 11, 2011, highlighted the power and importance of social media and the web at large when it comes to communicating and sharing information with others - especially as the phone networks went bust immediately after the earthquake and made voice communication impossible.

Challenges remain, such as the digital divide (young vs. old people, users who are web-savvy vs. those who aren't, etc.) or the danger of mass-distributing false information through social media, but the web's "reputation" has clearly risen in Japan.

Internationalization
The list of Japanese web, mobile, and gaming companies that started expanding across borders (or bolstered their efforts) in 2011 is long: Rakuten, DeNA, GREE, Dwango's Nico Nico Douga, and CyberAgent are just the most prominent examples.

Quite a few startups are now creating services that are multi-lingual from the get-go (i.e. Sumally, Beatrobo, Crowsnest, etc., etc.).

The tech industry is maturing, Japan's population is greying, and entrepreneurs need to deal with saturated markets: expect internationalization to only pick up speed in the next years.

Android Revolution
The smartphone revolution started earlier than 2011 (mainly driven by the smash success of the iPhone), but it was during the last year that Android really started gaining a foothold in Japan. Just one example: SoftBank's winter 2011 cell phone line-up includes just one feature phone - but nine Android handsets.

Feature phones are still king in Japan, but market research companies like Tokyo-based MM Research are expecting smartphone shipments to outnumber those of traditional handsets next year.

Americanization
2011 is the year that Facebook started to become popular in Japan even though it will take at least another year to determine how sustainable the growth really is - not too few people think it has the potential to eventually throw market leader Mixi off the throne. Twitter has seen another massive boost in popularity after March 11 (see above).

In mobile, Google's Android and Apple's iOS are set to dominate the market in the next years - local mobile platforms have no chance in the foreseeable future.

• the removal of sim-locks in Japanese cell phones
• the termination of analog TV (and rise of connected TVs) after 58 years
• major Japanese video game makers going social,
• or ebooks slowly (but surely) gaining popularity in Japan.

Tags: Japan, Trend by Serkan Toto
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Taito [J] has released the Android social game “特工大戦” (SPY WARS), for the smartphone “Tencent Wireless Open Platform for Community” through business partnership with GREE [J] and the Chinese internet portal Tencent.

“特工大戦” is the first segment of a social game in China for the “Tencent Wireless Open Platform for Community.”  It’s a Chinese language version of the popular social spy game offered in Japanese as “SPY WARS,” where players become an intelligence organization’s agent.  To save the world from a series of crises, they must join with partners to carry out various missions; to prevent conspiracies laid out by enemies, players order subordinate intelligence operatives, execute missions from their organization, and challenge foreign agents to battle in order to snatch their confidential information carried undercover.

Since Tencent and GREE’s business partnership in January of this year, they have been offering business support and localization as a collaborative development of each other’s platforms .

Translation authorized by VSMedia

Tags: News, Social game by Chiho Komoriya
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