Puzzle & Dragons arrived at France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Netherlands and Finland

Today, Japan's GungHo released iOS version of their popular puzzle RPG "Puzzle & Dragons" in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Netherlands and Finland.

They have already released this in Korea, North America and the U.K. It break through 2 million downloading in Korea on July 1 and in the North America on October 30. It is inferior to popularity in Japan, but is the number that is not bad for an overseas advance of the Japanese game apps.
By the way, what kind of standard would this release countries be chosen in? Finland may be related to their having purchased Supercell. Are the others the Axis Powers and pro-Japanese countries?

DeNA released Japanese Manga apps for a global market

Today, DeNA released free Manga apps "Manga Box"  for the expansion of a new mobile entertainment domain.

iOS:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manga-box./id633864753?l=ja&ls=1&mt=8

Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dena.mj

Manga Box is weekly comic magazine apps that we can read a serialization comic free. Current issues are updated on every Wednesday. DeNA cooperate with Japanese major publishing companies(ex kodansha and Shogakukan), and publishes 28 spin-off works of popular comics from the first issue. Furthermore, they cooperate with Dentsu, the Japanese major advertising agency and think about carrying out multimedia development positively.

Interestingly, they release both Japanese version and English version from a beginning. Furthermore, they release it for 140 countries including Asia, South America, North America and Europe. This is very rare by the Japanese e-book apps. Well, Japanese are very weak in an overseas advance :P Know-how of their social game publication is made use of in this.

Unfortunately GREE and Mobage are gradually losing power in the Japanese social game industry. Therefore DeNA makes efforts in the business except the social game rapidly recently. Manga Box is the part, too.

Japanese legendary RPG Dragon Quest(Dragon Warrior) attacks the smartphones

Dragon Quest(Eg name:Dragon Warrior) is  Japanese legendary NES video game. After the appearance of this, JRPG started in earnest. Japanese gamers were excited at this in those days and made a long line in a game shop to buy Dragon Quest. Until this year, Square Enix did not do smartphone development of the Dragon Quest series at all(Though there are a lot of smartphone games of the Final Fantasy series). However, they opened the closed gate suddenly. At first they released Dragon Quest portal apps, and released a smartphone version of first Dragon Quest in free of charge in commemoration of it.

Japanese gamers jumped at this and first Dragon Quest broke through 1 million downloading at the release first day. At first, Square Enix intended to let only the first 1 million download free. However, they extended a free downloading period until December 10 because a reaction was too big. Now, first Dragon Quest breaks through 3 million downloading.

Square Enix will release the smartphone version of other Dragon Quest series in future. They release Dragon QuestVIII for downloading price 2,800 yen on December 12 at once.

Nameko fair of winter in Tokyo station

Until December 8, a fair of Nameko Saibai Kit is held at a underground shopping area of Tokyo Station. There was a battlefield of Nameko fans! :D

Every Nameko goods were sold, and they were bought in an instant by fans. Particularly, the stuffed toys of 1,260 yen were very popular, and staff were very busy to supplement them.

A commemorative stamp of Nameko fair.

A popularity vote of Nameko. In released Nameko Saibai Kit apps, Nameko more than 300 kinds was born until now. Who will a popular Nameko be in them most? According to Nameko official site, 5,000 votes or more gathered only at the first day.

Anime DVD of Nameko is released next month.

See Also:
Japanese popular mobile apps character Nameko becomes the Anime at last

In Nameko Fair, a part of the episode was shown. It's very cuuuute! Nameko do not speak all lines, but express feelings only by a motion. This is an original animation. Furthermore, the goods of Nameko anime have been already made.

Cardboard Nameko is evangelist of Nameko world. He continues transmit charm of Nameko day after day (actually, he is the staff of Beeworks, the developer of the Nameko Saibai Kit series).

The goods which I bought. A stuffed toy and a picture book. The girl who became 3 years old of my relative was Nameko freak and she mastered how to use Android phone in Nameko! I intend to present these to her.

Nameko Saibai Kit series is smartphone game apps most popular in Japan. They break through 40 million downloading and are more popular now in Taiwan than Japan. In addition, the number of the downloading increases in Korea and China. They held a meeting event of Nameko in Takao, Taiwan on November 23 and 24.

LINE broke through 300 million users at last

Today, Users of LINE  broke through 300 million at last. They start service in June, 2011 and get many users now in East Asia, Spanish zone, France, Germany, Italy, India and Turkey.

Interestingly, 80% of LINE users are not Japanese. Usually, Messaging apps has a hard time  with the acquisition of users except the own country. However, LINE got foreign users more than Japanese users in a short term. Particularly, there are many LINE users in Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Spain and India. They got 10 million users in India in only three months.

They showed infographics. (Big size is here)

According to this, Messages and the stickers transmitted in 1 day are about 7,200 million times, Stickers was used about 216 billion times, and the total of the call time is about 568 years!

What is a foundation of LINE's popularity? Now, there are a lot of messaging apps all over the world, but what is the difference between them and LINE? According to them, most popular stickers are these.

Well, all of them are LINE characters! They pull profit of LNE. Sales of stickers, sales of real goods, and character license.

LINE aims at the acquisition of 500 million users in 2014.