Japanese mobile game superstar Nameko goes into Southeast Asia

BeeWorks Games' Nameko Saibai Kit, the popular mobile game series in Japan still maintains popularity. They passed the total 40 million downloading at the end of last month...

The household appliance chain Chung Yuen Electrical in Hong Kong presents original goods to consumers...

And the chocolate snack where toys were attached to is sold in Taiwan.

In these countries, Nameko is more popular than Japan. Furthermore, BeeWorks Games let Nameko go into Southeast Asia. They released Android application of a Thai version and the Indonesian version in the beginning.

ชุดเพาะเห็ด Seasons
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.beeworks.funghiGardeningKitSeasonsThId&hl=th

Nameko Gardening Kit
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.beeworks.funghiGardeningKitKoZh&hl=id
Nameko Gardening Kit Seasons
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.beeworks.funghiGardeningKitSeasonsThId&hl=id

They supported Japanese, Italian, French, English, Chinese, Korean until now, but this is the first time that they support Southeast Asian languages. According to the Social Networking Service, the Southeast Asian countries already have a lot of Nameko fans, and the goods seem to be sold, too(but most of those are illegal copy products). Southeast Asia may become like Hong Kong and Taiwan from now on.

Largest bank in Japan cooperates with Ingress

The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ(BTMU) which is one of the largest bank in Japan started collaboration with Google's mobile game Ingress. They made all of their branches and ATM "BTMU portal". Their customers can hack portal whenever they use branches and ATM.

In addition, they released new virtual item "MUFG Capsule". This is the first of its kind in Ingress, rare item allows agents to store and even accumulate more items over time.

Japanese Ingress agents are very active and perform various original activity. Companies pay attention to it, and are going to apply it in business. It is not only BTMU to cooperate with Ingress. Convenience store Lawson made all stores portal from last year(By the way, their symbol color is blue). The local government of Iwate prefecture utilizes Ingress for regional vitalization, and achieve big result. You can fully play Ingress if you come to Japan for sightseeing or business.

Ingress special page of BTMU is here.

Stylish bionic hand of open source

exiii is a startup developing 3D-printed bionic hand of the stylish design and low price. They released the design data and source codes of HACKberry, their latest 3D-printed bionic hand as open source in Github. They demand the participation of cooperators from all over the world to raise the completeness of this. Developers and designers can arrange designs, 3D prints parts, and renew source codes based on their data. When they improve HACKberry than an original, it is necessary to report it to the HACKberry community.

Let's add voices to illustration works

Voice actors/actresses of anime and games are very popular in Japan. Illustration communication service pixiv released iOS application "pixvoice" which users can add voices to illustration works which other users drew.

If characters spoke lines? And if myself played it? Users can record lines within 40 characters and 30 seconds, post it for illustrations and experience a voice actor/actresses willingly. In addition, users can check illustrations with the voices of popularity in ranking, look for illustrations recruiting voices and listen to voices that other users posted. Android version is released in a few days, too.

Chat robot which can talk naturally

Leading mobile phone carrier NTT Docomo and toy maker TAKARA TOMY developed chat robot OHaNAS which can talk naturally. They sell this for 19,800 yen on October 1. OHaNAS connects to Docomo’s cloud-based natural language dialogue platform by smartphones or tablets using Bluetooth and apps, and utilizes data on cloud and chats with users. He/She answers the slight question of users, sends the latest information such as the news and weather information, suggests menus of the dinner, and says jokes.

Beer whisk using the supersonic wave

The season when cold beer is indispensable comes over soon. Therefore, gadget company Green House released "Beer Foamer" of a beer whisk using the supersonic wave.

This is whisk of the stick type of 43 grams in weight and makes creamlike heads by supersonic vibration of 40,000Hz. Foam made with this is very small and keep for a long time. How to use is easy, place this in the glass which you poured beer and only touches a switch. The power sources are two tetramorphism alkali dry cells and you can use it in succession for about one hour.

Angry Birds Fight! --- New game of Angry Birds that developed in Japan

Unfortunately the Angry Birds series is not popular in Japan. If Rovo was an ordinary company, they would withdraw from Japan. However, they carried out a more aggressive project. They developed a new game of Angry Birds from Japan in cooperation with a Japanese mobile game company.

Angry Birds Fight! is the real-time puzzle battle game that Rovio Japan and KITERETSU developed jointly. You may remember Puzzle and Dragons to see these screenshot. The basic rule of this is surely match-3 puzzles, but the important point of this is PvP. Players are performed matching of automatically, and they compete with other players for the score of the puzzle.

In fact, the system of this looks just like KITERETSU's representative game ZOOKEEPER BATTLE(iOS/Android). The animals of ZOOKEEPER became the birds of Angry Birds.

However, of course Angry Birds Fight! has elements only in Angry Birds. At first, artworks, voices and sound are the originals which Rovio dealt with. Green pigs appear as boss enemies and raid boss enemies of various areas. Players can buy weapons and clothes of birds using the coins which they got by  puzzle battles. It resembles Angry Birds Epic.

Furthermore, there is the function like  Japanese mobile game. It is Gacha. It is the vending machine which special items come out to at random.

They released this in Asia and Pacific area on May 7 and passed 3 million downloading on May 25. 3 million is numbers appropriate for the hits in Japan. They'll release this for a global market on June 11.

They cooperated with Japanese dance unit Tempura Kidz for the promotion of the game. The one of them is boy. Do you know who is it? :)

Mobile Game cooperates with a real cafe --- Colopl's "Nekomatsuri Cafe"

Now, measures to expand the world of mobile games to the reality world are performed in Japan. "Collabo(ration) cafe" is the most popular in them. As example, I went to Colopl's Nekomatsuri Cafe last month. (*neko means a cat in Japanese and matsuri means a festival in Japanese)

Colopl is one of the Japanese main mobile game companies, and their quiz RPG The World of Mystic Wiz, full 3D action RPG Shironeko Project, and town sim Meow Meow Star Acres are in particular popular. The motif which is common to these 3 games is a "cat". Therefore they cooperated with Sweets Paradise of the cafe chain and made their branch in Kichijoji, Tokyo full of cats.

Because there was too extreme popularity, visitors had to made a line and wait before opening. Numbered tickets were distributed to visitors for congestion evasion.

I was the 43rd, and told to come again 100 minutes later by the staff. 100 minutes later!

 Nyanko Curry 920yen(about 7.3USD)

Nyanko Mango parfait 860 yen(about 6.8USD)

I was kept waiting much to enter there, but the menus of this cafe were splendid. What a cute! These are the menus that games became the motifs and serial cords of the virtual goods which users can use in games as a privilege are attached to these.

Of course artwork of games are used for luncheon mat.

Furthermore, the interior of the cafe was full of artworks of games, too and visitors were able to enjoy taking photos.

Visitors can purchase the original goods of games as a souvenir after a meal. Because there are the time-limited goods which users can purchase only in this cafe, these are very rare.

The menus of such a collabo-cafes are more expensive than normal cafes, but they provides a special experience to heavy users who want to be devoted to the view of the world of games. In addition, the menus are expensive, but the value of special virtual goods is included in it. The cafes have a merit in this business model. Because they can get new customers by cooperating with game companies.