4.06.2016

Japanese travel agency sells tour plans of Ingress for Tōhoku


Japanese travel agency WILLER TRAVEL cooperated with Niantic and started the sale of tour plans of Ingress to the Tōhoku(Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Akita, Yamagata) district "Tōhoku Ingress Plan". Virtual items are included in travel expenses.


For a reconstruction aid of Tōhoku from 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Niantic brings back portal submissions of the coastal place area of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima in April ~ May, and hold an portal submissions event "Ingress: Initio Tōhoku Mission" on April 24. WILLER TRAVEL supports agents by selling tour plans. They will open a special page of the English version on April 12 and sell these tours to agents visited from the foreign countries.

Niantic held an event last year in Tōhoku, and more than 6800 agents gathered. This year, Niantic CEO John Hanke participates in "Ingress: Initio Tōhoku Mission".

The first Japanese board game which utilized VR

Japanese board game company Gift 10 Industry released the first Japanese board game which utilized VR "Anyubis no Kamen(アニュビスの仮面: The Mask of Anyubis)". The price is 3,980 yen(about 36USD).

Anyubis no Kamen is a game of the cooperation type to play with 2-7 people. As can be seen, a motif of this is Anubis which is one of ancient Egyptian God, and the simple VR goggles(Mask of Anyubis) which designed his head are included in this set.


This is a treasure hunt game to search for in dungeon. Players search for dungeon in the virtual world with Mask of Anyubis in turn, cooperate, and make a map.





Only one Mask of Anyubis, one player can see dungeon only one minute, and players must tell structure of the dungeon which oneself saw to other players exactly. It may be said that this is "Chinese whispers" game.

They let 500 sets for the reservation already sold out. Now, they sell this in board game shops.

InfoLens sells VR HMD in family friendly department store in Japan

Toy sales company InfoLens started sale of Accessories 4 Technology's VR Head Mount Display "STEALTH VR" in Japanese family friendly department store AEON.


AEON is one of the Japanese main retail stores. there is it in the  what kind of country town in Japan(Rather it is useful like a lifeline in the country , because the country has little entertainment). Consumers can buy all things necessary for life and can finish all business if they come here. There is a handy amusement place of families of the countries. VR is one of the hottest topic in Japan, but it's only early adopters of the urban area still now. InfoLens is going to spread VR movement to families of the countries.

STEALTH VR is VR HMD using smartphones. If the size of the screen of smartphones are 4 - 6 inches, what kind of smartphones are available. Even any countrymen use smartphones now, and this is the good gadget for simple VR experience. The price of this is 9,800 yen(about 88USD).

Supercell's new mobile game Clash Royale holds a fan meeting event in Tokyo

Supercell does promotion activity well in Japan. They got the popularity in cooperation with Japanese advertising agencies, media and partners. As a result, they gathered many fans in Tokyo Game Show 2015.

See Also:
Supercell exhibits the decent booth and It was supported by fans in Tokyo Game Show 2015

Next, they hold a fan meeting event of their new mobile game Clash Royale in Akihabara, Tokyo on April 16 in cooperation with game community Lobi.


Lobi is the game community and chat service that Japanese Web service / contents production company Kayac runs. They started the offer of the fan meeting event held service for game developers in Lobi. Developers can announce the fan meeting event of their games in community of Lobi. Kayac supports developers, in charge of the administration of the event, live streaming, the writing of the event report article in Lobi.

Supercell's Clash Royale is the first example of this service. They invite only 80 participants by lot in Lobi. The entrance fee is free, but it is a fierce battle! The event is carried out in e- sports form and shown in Youtube Lobi channel.

event info
https://web.lobi.co/blog/news/42ff7c090327b1da67f7c9fbad6d2635c27ae6cc

4.01.2016

The hologram videos which you can watch on smartphones

Now, Virtual Reality is one of the hottest topics in Japan, but is there the method to be able to enjoy "Virtual" more easily? This Palm Top Theater is the entertainment goods which show a three-dimensional hologram by superimposing three kinds of pictures on three levels on smartphones.


The body of this is paper, users can enjoy hologram video easily by setting own smartphone to this, and starting apps. Three semitransparent mirrors are fitted in the inside of this, each reflects different video and puts it together.



The structure is simple, but you can look at the 3D hologram by the naked eye. Now, this cooperates with TV program "Ichara" and offers the contents of this. The price is 1,500 yen(without tax).

3.30.2016

Samsung and Japanese professional baseball team offer VR contents to fans

Samsung Japan and Japanese professional baseball team Yokohama DeNA BayStars(Well, the owner is mobile game company DeNA) provide VR contents to fans to a start in this season. They install Gear VR booths in the stadium and show various 360-degree video to fans. We can see them in this special page "360 BayStars".


They add new 360-degree videos every month during the season. They showed these from this month, and passed 35,000 views in only one week.



Furthermore, in the official goods shop of the BayStars' home stadium in Yokohama, collaboration model of Gear VR of BayStars and Galaxy is sold.

Pokemon Company and Niantic started field test of Pokémon GO in Japan

Pokemon Company and Niantic started field test of Pokémon GO for Android users in Japan.


Pokémon GO is geolocation mobile game using the GPS function of the smartphones. Players become the pokemon trainer, catch pokemon in the reality world, bring them up and can confront other players. It's just the geolocation game that combined the Pokemon series with Niantic's Ingress.

They adopt them for development with feedback from testers, and will increase the number of people of testers progressively. However, unfortunately the test is carried out only in Japan.

mixi started promotion of the popular mobile game Monster Strike for North America


mixi started promotion activity of their popular mobile game Monster Strike in earnest in the North America. In the beginning.They show CM. Director is Wayne McClammy, and Andy Samberg appears in it as a coach of monsters.



mixi cooperated with Facebook for promotion in the North America from February. They show CM in accord with each for 8 targets which they segmented, and perform the offline-marketing from now on.


3.29.2016

NAMCO opens VR amusement facilities "VR ZONE Project i Can" in Tokyo on April 15


NAMCO opens VR amusement facilities "VR ZONE Project i Can" in the DiverCity Tokyo 3F on April 15. But it's limitation for half a year and Only people who made a reservation online can enter it. Unfortunately under 13 years old cannot enter it.



"VR ZONE Project i Can" is VR arcade for adults, we can enjoy various contents using VR, and BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment develops the contents. The contents that they plan now are six kinds. Walking over the board which stuck out on the high-rise building, cliff precipice ski, car racing, horror escape the room, driving of the train, and driving of the huge robot. Play times are 6min ~ 14min and play fees are 700yen ~ 1000yen. However, we cannot pay them in real coins. We must realize e-money of BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment "Bana Coin" of  before entering there.







They start entrance registration in web site on April 8 12:00. Demonstrations of VR contents are popular always anywhere in Japan. However, the people must wait for a long time because VR are too popular. They want to solve it in permanent amusement facilities and registration. But unfortunately the text of the web site is only Japanese. Foreign tourists who want to experience these, please use the translation sites!

 

3.28.2016

Level-5 and NHN PlayArt released English ver. of Yo-Kai Watch's mobile game Yo-Kai Watch Puni Puni

Level-5 and NHN PlayArt released "Yo-kai Watch Wibble Wobble", the English version of Yo-Kai Watch's mobile game Yo-Kai Watch Puni Puni last week in US, Canada and Australia. The downloading is free(iOS/Android).

See Also:
Yo-Kai Watch's mobile game Yo-Kai Watch Puni Puni released soon in North America






Yo-Kai Watch of the 3DS game is an RPG, but this is a puzzle game. At first, players make friends with Yo-Kai butler Whisper, and battle against Yo-Kais who are in the downtown with puzzle according to his guide. When players win to Yo-Kais, they can make friends with them. The basic game system is the same as Japanese ver. Yo-Kai Watch Puni Puni. However, as a matter of course, all texts, names of Yo-kai, names of their skill are modified by English. For example, "Puni"(Puzzle bubble) in Jp ver. is "Wib-Wob". In addition, all voice actors of characters are changed in English ver., too. Almost all voices are recorded only for this newly. They gave enough localization for a mobile game.

3.27.2016

Nintendo's first mobile apps Miitomo passed 1M downloading from release in only 3 days in Japan


Nintendo released their first mobile application Miitomo this month in Japan. Naturally it became the big topic and passed 1 million downloading from release in only three days. They release this at the end of this month in a global market if on schedule, but do not announce the concrete date.

First of all this is not game application. Players can make own avatar Mii, coordinate it with various fashion items and make funny images. Mii does various questions to players, when players reply them, informations are accumulated. This is avatar Social Networking Service rather than game application, and may be a rival of LINE PLAY(LINE's mobile virtual world).

 At first players choose the area where oneself lives in.

 Next, input the date of birth.

 Time to make Mii! Players can choose various parts and make Mii, but this has a function to generate Mii automatically from selfie. This is very simple.

Own Mii was completed at last.

This has original virtual currency Miitomo coins. Players can get it by achieving missions(ex, reply questions of Mii) in application.


The fashion items which Mii wears first are too simple. At first let's purchase new fashion items.




The rare fashion items are available by the mini-game such as the pinball. However, this is very difficult.

Furthermore, players put expressions, poses, background images of Mii together, make funny images and can share them in other sites such as Facebook. It is just like the camera application.

Sometimes friend's Mii come to own room, but because this is the social networking service that is async, the real-time chat is impossible. The Miis only share the information that they can show.

This is very easy avatar service. It may be comfortable for the people who were tired from messaging application, Facebook and Twitter.