Japanese sumo becomes the social game at last

Today, GREE announced that releases a mobile social game of sumo "Oozumou Card Kessen" in November.

This is the first time that Sumo becomes the social game. Besides, it is an official license title of Japan Sumo association.

Every sport became the social game in Japan. However, sumo is a ceremony as well as sports, and it have severe religious precepts, authority and a tradition. Therefore it was difficult to make it a social game like other sports willingly.

However, the sumo has already become the trading card in a real life and  card social games are very popular in Japan.

BBM 2012 大相撲カード BOX


The sumo social game of GREE is developed based on this. In the game, users can build their own sumo stable(Sumo Beya: 相撲部屋), train wrestlers and fight wrestlers from other users. All wrestlers appearing in the game are real life sumo stars.

 

I think that such a social game should perform global expansion. Then, GREE can send Japanese culture to the world through a social game.

NHN Japan's LINE earns 300 million yen by a virtual goods

NHN Japan announced that LINE got 60 million users today.

Recently, Facebook is popular in Japan, but LINE is more popular. Probably, reason is "simple". LINE users can chat and mail with users of the world seamlessly. The most important function is "LINE Stamp".

These are the illustrations which we can attach to a message. There is the LINE original design, famous characters and famous Anime are included in them. In addition, there are the companies which apply this in promotion.

They are used in this way. There are various expressions stamps, so, we can enjoy communication with other users without a text.

Originally it was only the free stamp of the LINE original. However, NHN Japan opened "Stamp shop" which sold paid stamps later. However, NHN Japan started the sale of the charged stamp in April. Then it was popular with users and achieved profit of 300 million yen(about 383M USD) at last in August. It is 300 million yen only by the sale of the stamp! By the way, one kind of stamp set is 170 yen... 300 million ÷ 170 ＝ 1764705.88...

This is already excellent virtual goods business.

Japan Tourism Agency released sightseeing application for iOS of Hello Kitty

Japan Tourism Agency is earnest now to invite tourists of the foreigner to Japan. Because Japanese economy suffers large damage in 2011 Aftermath of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and foreigners decreased by radioactive contamination from Japan.

Therefore Japan Tourism Agency utilizes Hello Kitty and iOS application "Visit Japan with HELLO KITTY".

This is the application that Hello Kitty guides all over Japan. Kitty wears the costume which expressed each district of Japan. These are attributive designs seen in the series called "Gotouchi Kitty" only in each area of Japan.

Furthermore, this has the AR function, too, and you can take a photo with AR Gotouchi Kitty in each area based on geolocation. This is very Kawaii! This supports English, China and Korean. DL is free.

I made Angry Birds figure

I made figure of Red Bird from Angry Birds.

Now, a lot of Angry Birds goods are sold at Japan. However, I think active UGC by users is necessary truly so that a social game and application are accepted in the world. In Japan, there is culture that make a figure of comic, anime, and game characters than before. By the way, I have a carrier of the making of figure model for 15 years.

master model is made by epoxy pate, mold is made by silicon rubber, and I reproduced it with urethane resin. I used acrylic paints for paint. and Furthermore, I reorganized these to garden pick. For me, it is expression of the respect to make figures.

The articles of all making are placed in my blog media "vsmedia".

No.1
http://vsmedia.info/2012/08/18/angry-birds_figure/
No.2
http://vsmedia.info/2012/08/26/angry-birds_figure2/
No.3
http://vsmedia.info/2012/09/03/angry-birds_figure3/

All of they are written in Japanese, but you may understand a process if you watch photos.

Here is the photos of all processes. Here is the photos of all processes(The thing which I did not use for articles are included).
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.480292152000140.120477.195197613842930&type=3

Japanese developers aim at Canadian App Store

Japanese social game developers go abroad recently. However, everybody releases game application in Canadian App Store. These are game application made in Japan released in Canadian App Store by the end of August.

DRAGON COLLECTION - KONAMI

Lord of the Dragons - KLab

Gangsta - Drecom

Montopia - Zynga Japan

Of course all these support English. However, these are not released in U.S and are all Canada. Why?

They may regard Canada as the test bed of the North America market. It is difficult for Japanese game application for smartphones to succeed in North America market. It is not made good even in GREE either. So, they will test it in Canada before starting in earnest.