10.29.2015

GungHo and Taiwan's Gamania establish a joint venture



Japan's GungHo and Taiwan's Gamania establish a joint venture dealing with mobile game publication in November. The tentative name of the company name is "GungHo Gamania", and the ratio of shareholding is Gamania - 49.0% and GungHo - 51.0%.

Their purpose is development of GungHo's mobile games in Asia. They release mobile games of GungHo which has already got popularity in Japan in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. GungHo has already released their representative popular mobile game "Puzzle & Dragons" and "Kerihime Sweets" in Taiwan. They have only Japanese support, but increase fans steadily in Taiwan. Based on this, GungHo Gamania makes efforts in Taiwanese support and localization.

King cooperates with a cafe in Roppongi, Tokyo to Halloween


The Halloween becomes prosperous year by year in Japan. Mobile game company King pays attention to it and cooperates with a cafe in Roppongi, tokyo "ColoR" for promotion of their mobile game Buble Witch to Halloween.

They sell three kinds of cocktail which assumed Buble Witch a motif in ColoR until October 31. They were devised by Japan's top bartender, Mr.Ishigaki Shinobu and those prices are 800 yen.

Stella's oracle potion - The violet liqueur & fresh lemon juice

Morgana breeze - Dry gin, orange juice & cranberry juice

Witch soda - Cassis & blue curacao

In addition, one cup of cocktail is offered free to people who showed a screen of Buble Witch in ColoR.

10.20.2015

Cute Godzilla in Japanese virtual world Ameba Pigg

Legendary and Warner announced that they produced sequels of Godzilla just the other day. This became the timely tie-up accidentally. Japanese virtual world Ameba Pigg opens a cute Godzilla area now.

The design of the Godzilla area reproduces a movie studio.


Classic filming booth. Japanese special effects movie before CG spread used miniatures and monster suits in this way. Users can take screenshots with cute Godzilla, Mechagodzilla and Mothra.

This is a filming booth of Mothra. There are Mothra's egg and Shobijin(Small beautiful women, the psychics of Mothra).

There is the Puri-Kura-like photobooth, too.


Of course there is Gacha, the basic sale of virtual goods in Japan. Users can buy various Godzilla goods for 250yen(about 2USD) at random. Miniature models, figures, stuffed toys and funny monster suits! The suit of the Godzilla is very cute!...but, King Ghidorah is... XD

10.13.2015

Trivia: Takeshi Kitano has participated in game development of NES


SEGA lets Takeshi Kitano(Beat Takeshi), the comedian, actor and movie director appear in their new game for PS4/PS3 Yakuza 6(龍が如く 極) as a character. His 3DCG movie is here(from 13:20)


However, this is not the first time that Takeshi Kitano engages video game. He supervised game for Nintendo Entertainment System(NES) released from Taito in 1986. The title is "Takeshi no Chōsenjō(たけしの挑戦状: Takeshi's Letter of Challenge).


Package design of this. Catch phrase is "Common sense is dangerous".

In Japan at the time, a lot of NES games that featured celebrities were developed. It just resembles the current Western mobile game market. In actuality, celebrities did not participate in those games, and they merely only lent their name and portrait to games. However, Takeshi Kitano thought about the story of the game by himself. He was absorbed in NES in those days and wanted to adopt unprecedented original ideas for this game. Besides, Taito employed all his ideas. As a result, the most Absurd game in Japanese game history was developed.


The story of Takeshi no Chōsenjō is this... "The businessman who does not get on in the world left the company and divorced a wife and decided to go to island of the South Pacific for the trip of the treasure hunt". Well, the leading role is not Takeshi Kitano and he does not appear for this game at all. He is right a director of this game.

The businessman had a wife and a child, but he was neglected from a family, and he was scolded in the company by the boss, and he wanted to escape from that life. One day, he was called by the president of company and was scolded. "Your recent business results are bad. Therefore there is little your bonus". He went postal at last and submitted the resignation.


When he got the small retirement bonus from the company and went home, his serious wife was waiting. His wife quarrelled with him at once, but he became the desperation and offered a divorce and held out the retirement bonus and a house to her.


He got tired of all, accepted a going drink in frustration to suburban bar, sang a karaoke and was going to forget his woes. However, he sang by force intoxicated by consecutively three times, and a quarrel was picked with yakuza. Usually, he was afraid of yakuza, but he nearly killed him by the fight by force intoxicated. Then a mystery old man approached him and said to him. "you have guts. You may solve the mystery of this treasure map..."

This is the opening of this game. In other words, you leave the company, get a divorce, are helplessly drunk in suburban bar and fight with yakuza to begin a game. Such an action game was unprecedented. Besides, Japanese games did not have rating in those days. Even primary schoolchildren played this game without any problem. By the way, I bought this at the age of 8 years old, but cannot yet clear it.


In addition, for an epoch-making point, players were able to hit every characters such as children, women, elderly people, yakuzas etc... They were able to hit even a character displayed by a password screen of the continue. But it is retaliated and killed for him when players hit him.


The scenario which becomes the game over before reopening a game is unprecedented.





The view of the world of the game is impressive, too. The town is decadent, has only dirty buildings such as illegal loan office, suburban bars, pinball parlor, and the movie shown in worn-out movie theater is "Yakuza vs. Yakuza".

The evaluation for this game is a pro and con now. Generally, this is representative of Kusoge(Shit game), but it was chosen as hall of fame in Retro  Game Award 2007 of Tokyo Game Show 2007.

I think that Takeshi Kitano hit on a game such as Grand Theft Auto earlier than Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series. In addition, the view of the world of this is common to the view of the world of Takeshi's movies. By the way, he showed first movie Violent Cop three years after the release of this game.


Takeshi no Chōsenjō was Takeshi's movie No. 0. Please check English Wikipedia first of all if you want to know detailed information about this.

10.10.2015

Anime of the popular mobile game Monster Strike is broadcasted in Youtube from October 10


mixi broadcasts 7min of short anime of their popular mobile game Monster Strike in Youtube from 19:00(JPT) on October 10. Thereafter, they show new episodes at 19:00 of every Saturday. Official site of anime ver. is here.


This is new contents development of Monster Strike. This has already become books, magazines, toys, and the various goods. The game for Nintendo 3DS is released in December, too. An interesting point is that they chose Youtube not TV stations. According to their press release, they assume that fans will check anime in smartphones. Furthermore, they want to show overseas fans this, and support 11 languages(Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese). Surely, these are impossible in TV stations. Please check their Youtube channel if you are interested in this.

10.09.2015

Japanese pro-baseball team treats Taiwanese tourists with smart glasses

Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (北海道日本ハムファイターズ) are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Sapporo, Hokkaidō. They performed the trial of the new service using the smart glasses to Taiwanese tourists. Why Taiwanese? Because Hokkaido is the Japanese northernmost local government and a lot of snow, and Taiwanese player Ya'ng Da'i-Ka-ng(陽岱鋼) is registered at Nippon-Ham Fighters. Therefore many Taiwanese tourists always visit Hokkaido. However, foreign tourists are inconvenient because a baseball stadium announcement and player notation are only Japanese. Then, Nippon-Ham Fighters supported Taiwanese with smart glasses.

 Smart glass MOVERIO of Epson was used for this trial.


The main support technique is AR. The data, profiles of players and score were displayed by Taiwanese to a screen. Operators updated the score in real time.

In addition, the commentary was translated into Taiwanese by an interpreter operator, too.

Tourists seemed to enjoy it very well. An advantage of the smart glass is that the user's both hands become free. This is the important point in watching sports.
A more detailed video is here.

10.08.2015

Japanese mobile game superstar Nameko multiplies in autumn Taiwan

Japanese mushroom character Nameko is popular in Taiwan, and they perform Taiwan's original events and campaigns now. This month, two Nameko events are held in Taipei.

At first, Nameko has a own shop at the basement mall "Tokyo character street" of Tokyo Station, and this mall goes on a trip to department store Dayeh Takashimaya in Taipei City from October 9.

See also:
[Photo Report] Nameko shop preview in Basement of Tokyo Station

Of course the Nameko shop opens a store there, and sell various limited goods selling in Tokyo there. The shop prepares for the area that can take photos with Nameko.



Nameko of Tokyo Station limitation goods does the cos-play of the station employee.

The second, they cooperate with Italian restaurant "Forno Pizzeria No. 1" in Taipei.


Why this season? because it is the season when mushrooms are delicious now. In this tie-up, the restaurant provides various menus using mushrooms.


When customers post photos of menus on the Facebook page of this restaurant, customers can get discount tickets of wine and the pizza.



Furthermore, tote bag of Nameko of the original design is presented to customers who reserved the seats. But it's limited to 100. They perform this tie-up until December, but may be sold out before it.



It is very unusual for Japanese mobile game  character to perform such a tie-up with overseas shops. Particularly, the chef-style Nameko in the Italian restaurant is an original illustration drawn for this tie-up. I am envious of Taiwanese Nameko fans! :)

The detailed information of Taiwanese is here
http://namepara.com/tw/info/news/4113.html

10.06.2015

Is this a toy robot? No, this is a cell-phone robot


What a pretty robot! If children get this, they will be surely pleased. However, this is not a toy. This is the cell-phone which Japanese consumer electronics company Sharp announced today.

His name is RoBoHoN. He is the next-generation robot type cell-phone which Sharp and roboticist Tomotaka Takahashi developed jointly, and released in early 2016. He is the small humanoid robot that bipedalism is possible, the height is 19.5cm and the weight is 390g. The user puts him in a pocket of the clothing or a bag, and can carry him to outdoors. In addition, he supports LTE/3G and has the basic function of the cell-phone such as voice call, e-mail, camera and liquid crystalline touch panel. Furthermore, he has a focus free small projector, and can project photos, videos and maps on a wall or a desk. The users can easily operate these functions by direct talk with RoBoHoN.






10.04.2015

GungHo and Nintendo hold the international championship of Puzzle &Dragons


GungHo released a game for 3DS which combined their popular mobile game Puzzle &Dragons with Super Mario "PUZZLE & DRAGONS SUPER MARIO BROS. EDITION" in April, and brought it into the Western market afterwards. Next is its championship! They started the application acceptance of the overseas qualifier meet of international championship of Puzzle &Dragons in United States and Germany.


qualifier meet is held in Japan, United States, Germany, and Korea. Of these, the United States is a qualifier place of North America, and Germany is a qualifier place of Europe. Players who won each qualifier meet can play in the final held at Chiba, Makuhari Messe on January 31, 2016. Because it is held in Japanese new huge game event Game Party Japan 2016, e- sports players may enjoy more.