2.03.2016

Gameloft and GungHo sign strategic business tie-up


Gameloft and Japan's GungHo announced that they had signed strategic business tie-up about develop and distribute of mobile games. They will share each other's knowledge and know-how, distribute mobile games to Japan and overseas markets, improve experiences of players and the game design, and distribute Gameloft's mobile games in mobile game platform PlayPhone(They were purchased in October, 2014 by GungHo).
For the first, GungHo got the publishing right in Japan of upcoming mobile game "Disney Magic Kingdoms" from Gameloft.

2.02.2016

Necessities at the time of the disaster


Anti-disaster goods maker Taiyo Enex released manual-type charger for smartphones where a hand handle, light, radio and siren are installed in a generator. It is right a necessity at the time of the disasters. This "Petit Thunder" has USB output and users can use charging cable attached to the smartphone directly. When users turn the handle 15 times, they can use a light for 30 hours and a radio for three hours. In addition, users can charge iPhone5 3% and iPhone6 2%. It may be slight, but should turn a lot of handle when they want to charge them a lot. Of course users can use this as not only Anti-disaster goods but also mobile battery in times of peace. The size of this is 125mm *52mm *42mm, weight is 120g and the price is 4,298yen(in tax).



Germany's Wooga releases an original mobile game in Japan

German mobile game company Wooga opened a Japanese branch in September, 2014, but unfortunately their games can't get popularity in Japan. Therefore they release Japan's original mobile game in cooperation with Japanese companies Pitaya Games and Imagineer. The title is "Sumikkogurashi -Puzzle wo Surundesu(すみっコぐらし ~パズルをするんです~)", and they opened a pre-registration site.





Sumikkogurashi(Life of corners) is the character series of Japanese stationery company San-X. Japanese people love corners. We want to secure the corner seats when we ride trains and when we go to surrounding cafes. These characters express such a Japanese national traits and are popular in a wide age group. In Japanese, 'coners' is called 'sumikko', and 'Gurashi' means 'life'.

In this puzzle game, characters of Sumikkogurashi go on a trip looking for their favorite corner space while playing puzzles. In a trip, they find new friends and items also. They carry out closed β test before official release and intend to brush up a game based on the play data of testers.

2.01.2016

Hello Kitty becomes the cellphone in April


Japanese startup Ola releases the Hello Kitty shaped cellphone "Hello Kitty FIGURINE KT-01" in this April. This is a flip phone with the body as Hello Kitty shape. When users close this, it become a Hello Kitty figure of palmtop size. Of course application are Hello Kitty specifications, too, and Sanrio supervises all of them. The smartphones spread enough in Japan, but the demand for futurephone as second phone remains, and they paid their attention to it and developed this. basic functions are only call and SMS, but it has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Priced at 12,000 yen(exclusive of tax).

1.27.2016

GREE makes anime of their mobile game with Chinese companies


Japanese mobile game company GREE makes anime made from their mobile game "Seisen Cerberus(聖戦ケルベロス)" with Japanese TV channel TV Tokyo, Chinese video site iQIYI, and China's Medialink Entertainment. It is broadcasted in iQIYI from March and is broadcasted in TV Tokyo from April. Official site of this anime is here.

Seisen Cerberus is a long hit game of GREE, and reaches the fifth anniversary from release in this April. Players become the knight serving one of three kingdoms, make own military unit, fight against enemies in cooperation with fellow and contribute to kingdom's further prosperity. This anime expresses an original story led by main characters based on setting and the view of the world of the game. GREE and iQIYI release the game with release of this anime in China.

This is the second big challenge to the China market by GREE. They ever had a Chinese branch office, but withdrew in 2013.