Japan Digest: Social gaming market to double, dream-controlling app, and more

(1) The Nomura Research Institute says that Japan’s social gaming market will likely be worth 393.5 billion yen (US$5.1 billion) in fiscal year 2016, roughly doubling in size when compared with 2011.

(2) Ad agency Hakuhodo’s Future Technology Works department has come up with a new app that controls your dreams. The Yumemiru (translated as ‘see the dream’) app lets users select different scenarios to dream about. It influences your dreams while you snooze by broadcasting sounds.

(3) Square Enix can be satisfied with the performance of Final Fantasy Brigade, the first social game based on the classic RPG series. The title has hit 500,000 registered players, 13 days after launch on Mobage on January 7th. In another news, Emblem Of The Gods, a social card battle game DeNA launched on Mobage last November, has racked up 500,000 users.

(4) A Social Game Academy will be launched this April, the beginning of the fiscal year for many Japanese companies. It will be located in Roppongi Hills in Tokyo’s Minato ward.

(5) Japan’s biggest real-identity social network Mixi and Mobage operator DeNA have announced an e-commerce partnership. The companies are in the process of setting up an online shopping service for Mixi members that’s scheduled to start in late March this year.

(6) Konami announced the launch of Star Wars Collection for GREE, a social game based on the movie.

(7) CyberAgent CEO Susumu Fujita said his company is ready to open the Ameba platform on smartphones for third-party developers in May this year.

(8) Shin Sengoku Buster, a “historic” social game developed by Tokyo-based social game maker Klab, has hit one million users. Klab started offering the game in March last year, first on Mobage for feature phones.

(9) DeNA is striking back in the ongoing lawsuit with GREE. To recap, in November 2011, GREE sued their rival, seeking damages of US$13 million.

(10) Sangokushi Kingdom, a social card battle game (again), racked up a total of two million registered users on GREE. The first-party game was launched on GREE for feature phones in September 2011, when the company was exhibiting at the Tokyo Game Show.

We thank nordicfactory for the flag image.