Despite being massively profitable in Japan, the problem for companies such as DeNA and GREE is that their success is built on a legacy technology; Japanese feature phones.
That was one reason both looked to acquire western companies - respectively ngmoco and OpenFeint - to extend their global reach and provide experience of smartphones, which are starting to flood into the Japanese market.
Teething troubles
Yet, for both companies, that transition isn't coming easily.
OpenFeint lost is co-founder and CEO Jason Citron in mysterious circumstances recently, and it appears that the western roll out of DeNA/ngmoco's Mobage platform on Android has been slow.
At least that's according to JP Morgan, which is reporting in an investors note that its recently released Android portal app has 'only' been downloaded 50,000 - 100,000 from Android Market; something it calls "extremely small".
Many of the Android games it's published through Mobage such as Pocket Frogs, Zombie Cafe and We Rule also showing low downloads numbers.
More than meets the app store?
Of course, with Mobage being pre-installed on some Samsung Android devices outside Japan, plus deals with carriers such as AT&T, Android Market downloads are unlikely to be a totally reliable guide of overall activity on the platform.
Indeed, DeNA and ngmoco are frantically building out a business framework for Mobage, with recent studio acquisitions in Chile, Vietnam, the US, and Holland plus a new start up in Sweden, and publisher offices in China, Korea and Singapore.
[source: Serkantoto via Gamebiz (Japanese)]
News
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
Top Stories
Feature
2 hours, 44 minutes ago
New release roundup: The best new mobile games from a battle royale to a console classic remake
Feature
May 16th, 2024
Behind the scenes: How adding sandwich offers to an idle merge game boosted three metrics at once
as
Feature
May 16th, 2024
Honor of Kings set for June 20th global launch after $15 billion+ revenue in China
Events
Valencia Indie Summit 2024 | Europe | May 16th |
Digital Dragons | Europe | May 19th |
GamesBeat Summit 2024 | North America | May 20th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Nordic Game Spring 2024 | Nordic | May 21st |
Impact 2024 - Indie Games | May 23rd | |
MomoCon 2024 | North America | May 24th |
Morocco Gaming Expo | Africa | May 24th |
Popular Stories
News
May 10th, 2024
Week in Views - Xbox's mobile games store is doomed to fail, Sonic meets the Angry Birds, and Apple's iPad problem
Feature
May 14th, 2024