Social gaming platform GREE has announced plans to expand into the TV arena, serving up a social TV service for Japanese smartphones.

Tentatively dubbed GREE TV, the service will make use of tuneTV, an existing social TV app that allows viewers to 'check in' to the shows they're watching and exchange comments with friends during broadcasts.

Tokyo-based mobile consultant Dr Serkan Toto expects the GREE TV offering to deliver very similar functionality for users of the GREE platform, noting that mobile TV is already ubiquitous in Japan.

T-shirts and plushies

Television isn't the only new area into which GREE is branching out, though. The social gaming giant has also formed a wholly owned subsidiary dedicated to merchandising.

The new company is currently being referred to as GREE Entertainment Products, and its sole purpose is to create and sell physical products based on GREE's catalogue of games.

Of course, to sell merchandise based on gaming IP, you need popular games with highly engaged players.

Whether GREE's western portfolio currently contains many titles of this kind is questionable, though, since its Japanese-developed titles have largely failed to capture the imagination of US gamers.

[source: SerkanToto]