Game
Game

Game

Youth Driving Asia's Mobile Market

As all Wireless Watchers will know, the youth market in the Asia-Pacific region is becoming a significant driver for growth in the region’s mobile-phone market, according to a report by In-Stat. Around 10-15 percent of all youth disposable income is spent on mobile products in developed countries, displacing spending on traditional youth products like clothing, toys, comic books, etc., while messaging accounted for 40.3 percent of Asian mobile youth data expenditures in 2004.

Bandai, Namco Joining Forces?

Bandai, creator of “The Power Rangers” and “Ultraman”, valued at 236.5 billion yen, may merge with Namco, who created “Pac-Man,” and has a market value of 154.9 billion yen, to create Japan’s second-biggest toy and video-game maker. The companies will combine as early as September under a holding company run by Bandai President Takeo Takasu and Namco Vice Chairman Kyushiro Takagi, according to Nihon Keizai shimbun article today. The companies may also develop content for high-speed Internet access and mobile phone users, the newspaper said.

Japan Exporting BREW Mobile Game Contents

Japan Exporting BREW Mobile Game ContentsKDDI will export BREW-based mobile game know-how to American telecoms hungry for advanced mobile content. Game producers Interactive Brains and Mobcast Inc. are KDDI’s first partners in this venture. Mobcast will initially supply two games: a quick-draw shooting game, ‘Hayauchi Gunman’ and ‘Photo Aquarium,’ which lets you decorate pictures on a mobile phone with a mobile aquarium. Interactive Brains will provide a high-speed 3-D racing game, Lightstream, available here on Vodafone and au. The content will be offered by the Japanese game makers with KDDI providing collection services and taking a cut of the action. The company also intends to localize game software itself for marketing and distribution on overseas networks. According to Interactive Brains, their game is scheduled for release in the US between late summer and autumn.

Mobile Fun and Games for Index Corp. and Takara Toys

Mobile Fun and Games for Index Corp. and Takara ToysMobile content distributor Index Corp. is looking to put more play into mobile content through a new alliance with Takara Toys. Japanese Game powerhouse Konami has washed its financial hands of all shares in Takara making room for Index to move into this big corporate box of marketable fun. Index Corp. has agreed to purchase 22.2 percent of the toy maker’s outstanding shares at a cost of around 11 billion yen reportedly. The partnership aims to use Takara’s lineup of popular TV animation and toys to drive development of content incorporating the Index Group’s mobile centered expertise.

The two have partnered before. Takara’s Bowlingual dog translator, see WWJ video here, is now our in the US and Canada and was jointly developed with Index and includes mobile phone functionality. In January 2004 Index and Takara set up a company to work on joint projects.

Massive Mobile Multi-Player Game Rollout Announced

Massive Mobile Multi-Player Game Rollout AnnouncedDoCoMo ruled 2004 with their 900i-series 3G phones and exclusive Final Fantasy VII spin off game ‘Before Crisis’ but spring 2005 belongs to KDDI. Japan’s leading 3G carrier has just whipped out a whole new posse of BREW-based mobile multiplayer games for their WIN CDMA 1X 3G handsets: Bandai’s Gundam (Kidousenshi Gundam 3D Meguri Ai Sora Hen); Bomberman 2 from Hudson; Armored Core; Ace Combat by Namco; Sega Rally; Street Fighter II and more. In February, KDDI launched EZ Game Street a new gaming platform powered by Square Enix; the user-friendly image-based interface and landscape of 350 games is set to become even more engaging with this boulevard of multiplayer options powered by new, fixed data rates.

KDDI Launches Mobile EZ-Book Portal

KDDI Launches au Mobile Ez-Book PortalOnline bookstores are nothing new but KDDI has wrapped up a mobile reading solution that transforms cell phones into personal book-mobiles. Starting 21 April, EZ Book Land for au WIN EV-DO cell phones brings bestsellers, business titles, movie novelizations, manga (comics) and anime right onto handsets — 7,000 titles from ten sites. Like the EZ Channel video program service, books auto-download to subscribers late at night (when network demand is low) to be read at leisure with no connection fees to worry about. Viewer software is provided by the XMDF e-book viewer developed by Sharp for regular titles and Celsys Comic Surfing software for manga/anime. EZ Book Land partner Maruzen’s bookstore chain anchors the portal in the real world for book orders of the three-dimensional kind via au Books.