The folks over at Symbian Japan held their Symbian Summit 2006 event in the Tokyo Westin hotel yesterday. Sponsored by DoCoMo and — by the looks of the site — well attended (Japanese only), it would seem they have been improving the platform presence here with three more handsets rolling out recently from… DoCoMo!
The legendary Katana, best known as a precision instrument sword used by the Samurai, has a new identity, that of a cutting-edge wireless phone by Sprint and SANYO. This ultra-thin handset features Bluetooth and a built-in VGA camera. Making its debut throughout the month of July in four bold colors, including Mystic Black, Blue Sapphire, Cherry Blossom Pink, and Polar White, which is a color that will be sold exclusively at RadioShack, the Katana will be available at Sprint Stores, online and at select third-party retailers for $279.99 or $79.99 after rebates with a two-year subscriber agreement.
Namco Networks and G-Mode have announced a strategic partnership for the U.S mobile gaming market according to the companies press release [.PDF in Japanese]. “Partnering with G-Mode expands our already large catalog of entertaining games, meeting the ever-increasing consumer demand for casual content,” said Kenji Hisatsune, President and CEO of Namco Networks. “G-Mode’s games have been hugely successful in Japan, and we believe this popularity will continue in North America.”
Sulake Corporation, which operates the leading online teen community Habbo, has started a new strategic cooperation in Japan. Movida Group, a joint venture by SoftBank BB Corp. and Asian Groove, has agreed to invest 6 million Euros of equity into Sulake Corporation. The investment is executed through Movida Investment International (WWJ has a video interview with Habbo Hotel for mobile from the Tokyo Game Show, fall 2004).
Last week saw an interesting double play for mobile devices in Japan as both NTT DoCoMo and Willcom announced new phones — DoCoMo’s 7-Series — or new PDAs — Sharp’s oddly named W-Zero3[es]. These, combined with the continuing speculation on the this fall’s entry of RIM’s Blackberry email device (will it have Japanese text input capability?), made it a busy week for wireless watchers.
On Tuesday, WWJ was first on the Web with a full report and images of DoCoMo’s new 7-Series, a mix of models from Sharp, Panasonic, NEC and Mitsubishi, as well as from US maker Motorola…
Shares of Softbank Corp., the company that bought Vodafone Group Plc’s Japanese mobile phone unit, had their biggest drop in a month after Merrill Lynch & Co. told investors to sell the stock and forecast a loss this fiscal year. Softbank, the worst performer this year on the Nikkei 225 Stock Average, slid as much as 7 percent in Tokyo. Merrill analyst Yasumasa Goda said in a note today the company will have a 7.1 billion yen ($62 million) net loss, compared with a forecast for a 30 billion yen profit by Toyo Keizai, a financial information publisher.
