By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
The social gaming boom in Japan has helped Tokyo-based KLab to go IPO at the the “Mothers” section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday (3656). The company received the listing approval on August 23. On the first day of trading, Klab shares shot up from 1,700 yen up to 4,070 yen. On the second...
Apart from Foursquare, Twitter, and Skype, Sony is planning to integrate another online service for buyers of their upcoming next-generation handheld gaming system, the Playstation Vita: Nico Nico Douga. Sony and Dwango apparently inked a deal under which Nico Nico Douga will be one of the pre...
Major Japanese publisher Kadokawa and Nico Nico Douga operator Dwango are deepening a business alliance they entered in October 2010. The two companies have announced a capital alliance under which Kadokawa acquired 16,800 shares (8.48%) of Dwango for US$37.1 million. At the same time, Dwango...
Good news for Dwango: in its latest financial report, the company says that Nico Nico Douga has counted 21.03 million users at the end of March 2011 (the end of fiscal 2011). 6.23 million users are using Nico Nico on cell phones. Dwango also says that the number of premium members in Japan (who pay...
It took Dwango years to release Nico Nico Douga in English, and after they finally did today, all I can say is that it is hugely disappointing, even for a beta release. Dubbed Nico Nico (Dwango dropped the “Douga”, which is Japanese for movies), the site, in its current form, looks more...
Nico Nico Douga is airing even more anime series. Dwango, or to be more precise its subsidiary Niwango, has added four new animes to the “Nico Nico Douga channel”. The new series bring the total number of animes that started airing on the platform this month to 13. Each show has a set...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry