DeNA Announces Social Games Joint Venture with Grasshopper Manufacture

Japanese mobile social gaming company DeNA (TYO:2432) this afternoon announced a joint ventures with Grasshopper Manufacture, Inc. Grasshopper, despite its misleading moniker, is an interactive entertainment studio based in Tokyo. The new JV will be established in November, and is to be ‘provisionally’ named Grasshopper Social Network Service Inc.

The partnership would see Grasshipper develop and operate games for DeNA’s Mobage platform, both in Japan and abroad. Goichi Suda, CEO of Grasshopper, commented on on the deal in the announcement:

Our new venture with DeNA will allow us to explore creative ways to bring Grasshopper Manufacture’s universe to a new world of players… Mobage’s world-class entertainment network and the power of social mobile games will unlock new types of experiences for our fans.

We’re not super familiar with Goichi Suda here at Penn Olson, but we hear he’s pretty big in gaming circles, and not just in Japan. DeNA director and executive producer Kenji Kobayashi said of the tie-up that “We are especially eager to deliver the creative magic of Suda51 to Mobage users worldwide.