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Tokyo Office Tour: Panoplaza has a 360-degree view of the world

Rick Martin 2013.10.28

Panoplaza, a platform created by Tokyo-based Kadinche, enables the creation of virtual spaces through the use of panoramic technology. In the past we have written about some implementations, including a number of retailers who use it to more realistically show how their store looks, all in the browser and viewable across many devices. Check out their panoramas of Daimaru department stores or Tokyu Hikarie to see what the service is capable of doing. In our latest Tokyo Office Tour, I had a chance to visit the Kadinche office. CEO Soko Aoki explained a little more about how they work, and what lies ahead for Panoplaza. I like photography, so it was really fun to see some of the gear they use on their Panoramic photo shoots. In addition to super-wide fisheye lenses, they also have some custom fabricated tools (using a Makerbot 3D printer on site) for mounting multiple GoPro cameras for 360-degree video recording. Panoplaza’s advantage, of course, lies in its software, and the end result when the images are processed into the final panoramic presentation. Soko expects that retailers and e-commerce players will make more use of these panoramic presentation, as it has high potential as an O2O…

Panoplaza, a platform created by Tokyo-based Kadinche, enables the creation of virtual spaces through the use of panoramic technology. In the past we have written about some implementations, including a number of retailers who use it to more realistically show how their store looks, all in the browser and viewable across many devices. Check out their panoramas of Daimaru department stores or Tokyu Hikarie to see what the service is capable of doing.

In our latest Tokyo Office Tour, I had a chance to visit the Kadinche office. CEO Soko Aoki explained a little more about how they work, and what lies ahead for Panoplaza.

I like photography, so it was really fun to see some of the gear they use on their Panoramic photo shoots. In addition to super-wide fisheye lenses, they also have some custom fabricated tools (using a Makerbot 3D printer on site) for mounting multiple GoPro cameras for 360-degree video recording. Panoplaza’s advantage, of course, lies in its software, and the end result when the images are processed into the final panoramic presentation.

Soko expects that retailers and e-commerce players will make more use of these panoramic presentation, as it has high potential as an O2O tool.

For users, being able to access such a virtual space online has many benefits, as you retain the sense of exploring a realistic space. But you can also benefit from supplementary info and functions, like clicking on a product to see more information or to make a purchase directly. Just recently Kadinche announced two new retailers that are using its service: Kintetsu Department Store (see their Abeno Harukas store panoramas) and Seibu Department Store in Shibuya (see their 15 panorama spots here).

Readers may recall that the company has previously partnered with Stores.jp to help small businesses create panoramic online store fronts.

Given the work required to do these photo shoots, the business does lack some scalability at present. But the company has managed to carve out a niche that appeals to big retailers, and Soko hopes they can manage to scale their operations further so they can do more. I hope they can do well, because I think the upcoming 2020 Olympics could represent an opportunity for a company like Kadinche, helping the city and its many retailers with promotion.

panoplaza-06 — Their meeting room sits just adjacent to a pedestrian street in a quiet neighborhood

panoplaza-08 — Kadinche logo signals we’re in the right spot

Fisheye lenses galore, and a fun Go Pro set-up for video

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Tokyo Office Tour: Freee takes small businesses for a walk in the cloud

Masaru Ikeda 2013.10.25

Freee is the Tokyo-based startup behind a cloud-based accounting solution. Readers may recall it has previously raised seed funding worth 50 million yen (about $523,000) back in December, and raised series A funding worth 270 million yen ($2.7 million) back in July. They recently relocated their office, and we visited the new location to speak with Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki and COO Sumito Togo to hear about their future plans. The company recently partnered with Tokyo-based startup Ubiregi, integrating the Freee accounting platform with the latter’s cloud-based POS (point of sales) system earlier this month. For small retailers or restaurant owners, this integration lets you automate your back office tasks, ranging from daily cash to accounts. By making use of such a service, they can save a lot of time and refocus their efforts on providing a better experience for their customers. In Japan, the penetration rate of cloud services is very low, not only at big companies but also at SMEs. Cloud services can easily provide up-to-date solutions for users. In order to encourage business people to change the paradigm of the Japanese business scene, we need to provide something more than cloud services. If we can create something…

Freee is the Tokyo-based startup behind a cloud-based accounting solution. Readers may recall it has previously raised seed funding worth 50 million yen (about $523,000) back in December, and raised series A funding worth 270 million yen ($2.7 million) back in July.

They recently relocated their office, and we visited the new location to speak with Freee CEO Daisuke Sasaki and COO Sumito Togo to hear about their future plans.

The company recently partnered with Tokyo-based startup Ubiregi, integrating the Freee accounting platform with the latter’s cloud-based POS (point of sales) system earlier this month. For small retailers or restaurant owners, this integration lets you automate your back office tasks, ranging from daily cash to accounts. By making use of such a service, they can save a lot of time and refocus their efforts on providing a better experience for their customers.

In Japan, the penetration rate of cloud services is very low, not only at big companies but also at SMEs. Cloud services can easily provide up-to-date solutions for users. In order to encourage business people to change the paradigm of the Japanese business scene, we need to provide something more than cloud services. If we can create something special in the Japanese market, we can top the global market at the same time.

In the past for SME owners, when you bought software for your back office operations, you were forced to buy a cheap edition if you couldn’t pay high license fees. Many companies could not use the full features of software that enterprises were making the most of. We thought this was ridiculous and we wanted to develop solutions to help SMEs liberate themselves from routine tasks and use more time for doing creative jobs.

Their team is working on adding new features to the platform but paying attention to keeping it simple so that people who are not accounting-savvy can keep using them. In the future, they expect to add several features like an instant-submission income tax report, and automating payroll calculations.

On their 12-person team Freee has seven engineers, but is hiring new people who can work on a variety of issues ranging from mobile app development to server-side maintenance. If any of our readers are interested, feel free to contact the company via thier recruiting page.

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Japan’s PlayLife proposes better ways to enjoy your free time

Takeshi Hirano 2013.10.12

See the original story in Japanese. I’m not sure why, but recently we’ve heard about many online box-office or event reservation services. We’ve also seen many sites that let users arrange travel plans with destination locals, such as Trippiece, Meetrip, Kitchhike, and Voyagin.com. On Thursday, a new company has popped up in this space. Japanese startup Playlife launched an online portal that aims to help you better entertain yourself. The website lets you to share what you’ve experienced on weekends or in your leisure time, focusing on what’s happening in your local neighborhood rather than the aforementioned travel planning sites. I have a sort of deja vu feeling about this kind of service. Several years ago, more than a few startups promised to help you share things around you, ranging from your purchase history to the outfits in your closet. Most of us have probably seen something similar to Playlike several years ago. But I still look forward to seeing how the startup will evolve since its founder/CEO Taichi Sato is such an impressive personality. Sato is one of those post-80s entrepreneurs. He elaborated on his unique career thusly: When attending Aoyama Gakuin University, I was a leader of the…

See the original story in Japanese.

I’m not sure why, but recently we’ve heard about many online box-office or event reservation services. We’ve also seen many sites that let users arrange travel plans with destination locals, such as Trippiece, Meetrip, Kitchhike, and Voyagin.com.

On Thursday, a new company has popped up in this space. Japanese startup Playlife launched an online portal that aims to help you better entertain yourself. The website lets you to share what you’ve experienced on weekends or in your leisure time, focusing on what’s happening in your local neighborhood rather than the aforementioned travel planning sites.

I have a sort of deja vu feeling about this kind of service. Several years ago, more than a few startups promised to help you share things around you, ranging from your purchase history to the outfits in your closet. Most of us have probably seen something similar to Playlike several years ago. But I still look forward to seeing how the startup will evolve since its founder/CEO Taichi Sato is such an impressive personality.

Sato is one of those post-80s entrepreneurs. He elaborated on his unique career thusly:

When attending Aoyama Gakuin University, I was a leader of the Shibuya Chapter in the Guardian Angels, an international organization of volunteer crime patrollers. I was interested to know what gangster teenagers were interested in. It’s a wonderful experience to work on something with your colleagues, even at the risk of your life [1].

Hospital bed perspective

And it was indeed a risky endeavor. While patrolling the town Sato also even got beat up and suffered a fractured rib.

But would go on to graduate school in the US to learn about the national security issues. He was aspiring to be a UN official but decided against it when he later realized the job description was much more clerical than he had expected.

After graduating from the school, in order to discover what he really wanted to do, he moved around to many jobs, including a consulting firm, DeNA, and Accenture. As a result of these busy posts, he was tired from overwork back in June of 2011.

When I felt sick, I was thinking what’s most important in my life. Then I realized it’s probably the moments having fun with my friends.

He created his concept for Playlife. And after leaving the hospital, he went to the US and spent two years and four months to launch the service.

I think the service still has much room to be improved. It is said that a web service depends on the personal character of the founder than how mature your idea is. So it will be interesting to see how this one fares.

Sato, above all, hopes to give people a chance to explore what’s the most important in their own lives too.

This might be a Japanese value, and working on something at the risk of your life is a virtue for typical Japanese. Perhaps in the spirit of Samurai.↩

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Japanese CEOs from Mixi, Livesense on developing new businesses

Takeshi Hirano 2013.10.07

See the original story in Japanese. This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013. On day one of B Dash Camp 2013 in Osaka, the first session featured a discussion, moderated by Hiroyuki Watanabe of B Dash Ventures, with two representatives of leading Japanese leading internet companies: Yusuke Asakura, CEO of Mixi; and Taichi Murakami, CEO of Livesense Mixi has revised its fiscal year performance forecast ending March of 2014, down from 13.5 billion yen ($139 million) to 8 billion ($82.4 million), forcing their executives into a hard spot. Meanwhile Livesense, while not well recognized by many outside Japan, but is performing well. We’re forecasting an operating profit worth 1.5 billion yen ($15.5 million). Currently we are exploring the launch of a new monetization model like a buzz marketing site. The both companies need to think about their future business strategy in their respective business environments. Coinciding with a new acquisition just announced today (they’ll acquire speed-dating organizer Confianza to launch a match-making business), Mixi’s Asakura spoke about his company’s future potential for in-house service development and M&A. Our readers may recall that to date Mixi has launched mobile testing environment DeployGate, photobook service Nohana,…

B Dash Ventures' Hiroyuki Watanabe, Livesense's Taichi Murakami, Mixi's Yusuke Asakura — From the left: B Dash Ventures’ Hiroyuki Watanabe, Livesense’s Taichi Murakami, Mixi’s Yusuke Asakura

See the original story in Japanese.

This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013.

On day one of B Dash Camp 2013 in Osaka, the first session featured a discussion, moderated by Hiroyuki Watanabe of B Dash Ventures, with two representatives of leading Japanese leading internet companies: Yusuke Asakura, CEO of Mixi; and Taichi Murakami, CEO of Livesense

Mixi has revised its fiscal year performance forecast ending March of 2014, down from 13.5 billion yen ($139 million) to 8 billion ($82.4 million), forcing their executives into a hard spot. Meanwhile Livesense, while not well recognized by many outside Japan, but is performing well.

We’re forecasting an operating profit worth 1.5 billion yen ($15.5 million). Currently we are exploring the launch of a new monetization model like a buzz marketing site.

The both companies need to think about their future business strategy in their respective business environments. Coinciding with a new acquisition just announced today (they’ll acquire speed-dating organizer Confianza to launch a match-making business), Mixi’s Asakura spoke about his company’s future potential for in-house service development and M&A. Our readers may recall that to date Mixi has launched mobile testing environment DeployGate, photobook service Nohana, a business research service, and a match-making business.

Watanabe asked how such new businesses can be synergized with their conventional businesses. Asakura replied:

We don’t need to pursue immediate synergy with our services. By making the most of the knowledge we have, we will keep acquiring new services and development ones in house. For example, the match-making business will be treated as separate from our main business.

Livesense’s Murakami unveiled they have four different business development efforts: internal service development, investment in startups, M&A, and partnerships. When pressed by the moderator, he confessed that he had hoped to invest in private lesson marketplace Cyta.jp, recently acquired by Japanese recipe site Cookpad. This prompted a big laugh from the audience.

Since Livesense has been developing a database business from the scratch, it helps them build up knowledge on how to better develop a new business. He said this will also work even in a business that is entirely different from their own existing businesses.

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Japan’s Stulio is a flea market app for fashionistas

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.10.02

For a while now, we’ve seen much hype around mobile flea market apps in the Japanese startup space. Many companies are eager to grab a piece of this second-hand clothing market, as we see increasing demand as people transitioning to mobile from desktop auction websites such as Yahoo Auction and Mobaoku. Stulio is a flea market app that is used by fashionistas and celebrities. Stulio is one such flea market app. It started off as a photo-sharing app, and at the end of September the company announced its jump to become a fashion e-commerce app. Users can purchase each others’ used items as well as exclusive items by popular models and celebrities. In addition to selling used clothes, the app also sells new clothes from fashion brands such as Wildfox and Moussy. The company behind Stulio is a joint venture of Enigmo, Stulio. Enigmo went public in June of last year, is the operator of Buyma. That service has 40,000 users (as of June 2013) from all over the world who can function as buyers, acting as a means to access to high-end global brands for more affordable prices than department stores. We had a chance to speak with the…

For a while now, we’ve seen much hype around mobile flea market apps in the Japanese startup space. Many companies are eager to grab a piece of this second-hand clothing market, as we see increasing demand as people transitioning to mobile from desktop auction websites such as Yahoo Auction and Mobaoku.

Stulio is a flea market app that is used by fashionistas and celebrities.

Stulio is one such flea market app. It started off as a photo-sharing app, and at the end of September the company announced its jump to become a fashion e-commerce app. Users can purchase each others’ used items as well as exclusive items by popular models and celebrities.

In addition to selling used clothes, the app also sells new clothes from fashion brands such as Wildfox and Moussy.

The company behind Stulio is a joint venture of Enigmo, Stulio. Enigmo went public in June of last year, is the operator of Buyma. That service has 40,000 users (as of June 2013) from all over the world who can function as buyers, acting as a means to access to high-end global brands for more affordable prices than department stores.

We had a chance to speak with the CEO of Stulio, Hirokuni Miyaji. He elaborates on the pivot of the app.

Stulio was initially developed by Enigmo and I took over back in July of 2012. I had always wanted to develop a flea market app so it was a great opportunity. To describe it in simple terms, Stulio is a flea market app that is used by fashionistas and celebrities.

The updated version of the app was released in September where we added official accounts by popular models and brands. What differentiates our app from other flea market apps is that the average price of sold items are around 30,000 yen to 50,000 yen which is much higher compared to other apps.

Stulio’s strategy to acquiring more users is to be active offline and to leverage a sort of Ameba-like tactic by having fashion influencers join, which then helps them reach the mainstream. The company recently opened a pop-up shop at Lafore Harajyuku where it held a renewal party with many notable guests.

Miyaji says the company is going to focus on building a fashion platform for now. But in the near future, it plans to launch its own line of fashion brand as well as expand to the wider Asian market.

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Tokyo Office Tour: A look at Monoco’s new showroom

Rick Martin 2013.09.30

We featured Japanese flash sales e-commerce startup Monoco recently when they announced they had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Fuji Startup Ventures. At the time it was mentioned that Monoco would be launching its Monoco Showroom in Shibuya, so we were delighted to receive an invite to swing by the opening this past Friday. The company sells items from designers around the world, their new showroom is a place where you can see some of them on display. But it also doubles as an office, and considering the beautiful furnishings there you’d be hard pressed to find a nicer place to work. Many of our readers may already be aware that Monoco was previously known as Flutterscape. I had a chance to speak to Monoco co-founder and CTO, Ari Awan, about that transition. He explains that the process was anything but simple: We started Flutterscape in February of 2011, but in February of last year we figured it wasn’t working. User growth was ok, but transactions and revenue were not growing. It was really hard to raise funds at the time, so we really had to figure out something. Flutterscape used a C2C model that let indie designers…

We featured Japanese flash sales e-commerce startup Monoco recently when they announced they had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Fuji Startup Ventures. At the time it was mentioned that Monoco would be launching its Monoco Showroom in Shibuya, so we were delighted to receive an invite to swing by the opening this past Friday. The company sells items from designers around the world, their new showroom is a place where you can see some of them on display. But it also doubles as an office, and considering the beautiful furnishings there you’d be hard pressed to find a nicer place to work.

Many of our readers may already be aware that Monoco was previously known as Flutterscape. I had a chance to speak to Monoco co-founder and CTO, Ari Awan, about that transition. He explains that the process was anything but simple:

We started Flutterscape in February of 2011, but in February of last year we figured it wasn’t working. User growth was ok, but transactions and revenue were not growing. It was really hard to raise funds at the time, so we really had to figure out something.

Flutterscape used a C2C model that let indie designers and makers export their products abroad. But this market turned out to be not especially big. Ari says one of their advisers introduced him to Fab as a possible model, and given that they had so many designers already, maybe they could go in a B2C direction.

Two weeks of sales for Monoco were the same as Flutterscape’s sales for a year.

Of course, business is rarely that simple. Ari says that he brought the idea to the board and they just didn’t want to do it. While Ari is not a particularly tall guy, he does give the distinct impression of being someone you don’t want to mess with. That turned out to be the case here, as what happens next is truly badass:

I asked our people to come in to the office on on the weekends. I said we have to do something or else we’ll go bankrupt. We started working on Monoco secretly, building it two weeks. We started selling things but no one knew it was us. Two weeks of sales for Monoco were the same as Flutterscape’s sales for a year.

From there, selling the transition to Monoco to the board was obviously not a hard sell. The site now has 87,000 members in total, with the average user falling in the 25 to 40 demographic. They have over 1100 partner designers, the vast majority (about 1000) located outside Japan. This means that many of the 50,000 items Monoco has on sale are not otherwise available for purchase in Japan, making it a great destination for design-minded consumers on the lookout for something extra special. There are now over 50,000 items available for purchase, with the most popular ones being in the categories of fashion accessories, t-shirts, posters and art, and smartphones accessories.

The Monoco event was attended by lots of folks from the design industry [1], and both Ari and CEO Takehiro Kakiyama addressed the crowd on Friday night. Ari spoke to the company’s mission statement, and what he hopes Monoco can do for the design community in general.

Monoco CTO, Ari Awan

There are some who see us as a threat disrupting traditional design retail and the supply chain. Yes definitely we cause some disruption but I think what we are trying to do is to disrupt people’s perception of design.

I think the more people talk about design the better awareness there is. And the more awareness that is spread about design, then the bigger the pie is for everyone in the industry.

Stay tuned to see how they do in fulfilling their mission. Given their progress to date, I wouldn’t bet against them.

You can find more pictures from the event below, including many of the design pieces that were spotlighted at the showroom.

monoco-showroom16 — CEO Takehiro Kakiyama

I’ve never seen so many scarves worn indoors before! ↩

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In conversation with Survey Monkey CEO Dave Goldberg

Masaru Ikeda 2013.09.26

Last week featured a number of international tech events here in Tokyo, including the Tokyo Game Show and ad:tech Tokyo. I was asked to serve on some panels at ad:tech, and moderated a fireside chat with Dave Goldberg, who is a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur and also the husband of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. For those unfamiliar with his work, he’s the CEO of Survey Monkey, a cloud-based, web survey development company, which raised $800 million from several investors (including Google) back in January. Prior to joining the company in 2009, he started his first media company, Launch Media, back in 1993, which was subsequently acquired by Yahoo for $12 million in 2001. According to Dave, the Survey Monkey has acquired over 68,000 users in the Japanese market alone, and he says both user and revenue growth are strong. The company has 15 million users in total around the world. Survey Monkey has acquired over 68,000 users in the Japanese market alone Coinciding with this his visit to Tokyo, he unveiled a new feature for Japanese users called Question Bank. The feature aims to make survey creation easier and faster by presenting samples of recommended Q&A sets to reduce bias…

chat-with-goldberg1 — Image credit: Hideyuki Nakanishi

Last week featured a number of international tech events here in Tokyo, including the Tokyo Game Show and ad:tech Tokyo. I was asked to serve on some panels at ad:tech, and moderated a fireside chat with Dave Goldberg, who is a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur and also the husband of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

For those unfamiliar with his work, he’s the CEO of Survey Monkey, a cloud-based, web survey development company, which raised $800 million from several investors (including Google) back in January. Prior to joining the company in 2009, he started his first media company, Launch Media, back in 1993, which was subsequently acquired by Yahoo for $12 million in 2001.

According to Dave, the Survey Monkey has acquired over 68,000 users in the Japanese market alone, and he says both user and revenue growth are strong. The company has 15 million users in total around the world.

Survey Monkey has acquired over 68,000 users in the Japanese market alone

Coinciding with this his visit to Tokyo, he unveiled a new feature for Japanese users called Question Bank. The feature aims to make survey creation easier and faster by presenting samples of recommended Q&A sets to reduce bias and give you more accurate answers.

Typically, when I have a chance to speak with entrepreneurs or investors from Silicon Valley, there’s one thing I can’t help but ask about. The most prominent startups in the Japanese market are from the gaming industry. But in the US, we’ve seen many exits for startups that serve enterprises. Why is there such a big difference in the two ecosystems?

He answered that there was a rise in the entertainment and consumer-focused gaming industry in the US, but the trend is changing. He says you can see user demographics changing at Evernote, as the service first targeted individuals but subsequently many office workers started using it to share documents with colleagues. Many companies have adopted it as a business tool, and he calls this phenomenon the ‘consumerization of business tools’. Dave adds that in Japan, when companies choose what tools should be used, it is typically a top-down decision where those at the top make their employers use the same tools. He notes this business culture gap makes it difficult for Japanese startups to succeed with business-focused innovations.

He closed with some sound advice for Japanese entrepreneurs:

Don’t fear failure, hire people who are smarter than you, and get all the support you can get.

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After a rough year, GREE still goes big at Tokyo Game Show

Rick Martin 2013.09.23

Back in 2011 the Tokyo Game Show was GREE’s coming out party, with the company planting a very big footprint in the gaming world – quite literally too, occupying about 10% of the entire floorspace. That exhibition was interpreted by some to be more political than practical, a show of power from a company poised to take over the world via smartphones. Skip to 2013 and we find that GREE, while still a mobile powerhouse, has had to scale things back. GREE’s offices in China and the UK have been shut down, and in the US and Canada the platform division has been shrunk, with staff being integrated back to Japan. Sony and Microsoft are the biggest exhibitors this year, spotlighting new consoles, and for mobile, the new kid on the block is GungHo Online Entertainment, showcasing Puzzle & Dragons in a coming out party reminiscent of GREE two years back. Tokyo Game Show is a very important opportunity for us to interact with our players. Nevertheless, GREE was still out in full force at the Tokyo Game Show this year, with the same humongous booth that they’ve had for the past three years. I wondered, after what was a…

Back in 2011 the Tokyo Game Show was GREE’s coming out party, with the company planting a very big footprint in the gaming world – quite literally too, occupying about 10% of the entire floorspace. That exhibition was interpreted by some to be more political than practical, a show of power from a company poised to take over the world via smartphones.

Skip to 2013 and we find that GREE, while still a mobile powerhouse, has had to scale things back. GREE’s offices in China and the UK have been shut down, and in the US and Canada the platform division has been shrunk, with staff being integrated back to Japan. Sony and Microsoft are the biggest exhibitors this year, spotlighting new consoles, and for mobile, the new kid on the block is GungHo Online Entertainment, showcasing Puzzle & Dragons in a coming out party reminiscent of GREE two years back.

Tokyo Game Show is a very important opportunity for us to interact with our players.

Nevertheless, GREE was still out in full force at the Tokyo Game Show this year, with the same humongous booth that they’ve had for the past three years. I wondered, after what was a rough year for GREE, why it was necessary for GREE to have such a huge display. I suppose once you make a booth of that magnitude, you may as well keep using it. It’s hardly something you can sell on eBay or Craigslist, is it? But I spoke to GREE senior vice president of social gaming, Eiji Araki, about this, asking why the company still comes to TGS in full force:

The Tokyo Game Show is a very important opportunity for us to interact with our players. In the mobile internet industry it is very difficult to interact with real players to see how they play our games, to see how they are enjoying the games. There are lots of staff here, game producers standing besides the titles they created.

This last point took me by surprise, as I had thought that perhaps the staff at the booth were just temporary part-timers. Like most companies at TGS, GREE had its share of models manning their floor space, but it’s encouraging to see that their game producers are on site to speak and interact with consumers.

Araki points out that the focus of their booth is primarily on existing titles rather than new ones. But one fresh change for the GREE booth this year was a dedicated section for Pokelabo, the Japan-based studio which GREE acquired back in October of 2012 for 13.8 billion yen.

Almost a year after that acquisition, Araki tells me that the Pokelabo studio still operates separately for the most part, but that there is a mixed team where Pokelabo and GREE work on collaborative titles. But letting Pokelabo do what they do best is somewhat indicative of GREE’s new focus going forward, distilling their business to do what they collectively do best. Araki explains:

That’s why we downsized some studios, and these studios are still doing really well, focusing on what they are good at. So we are creating lots of new games in US studio for US market, and in the Japan studio for Japan market. At this moment, we are not creating games from Japan for abroad, or from US to Japan, It would be better for our studios to focus on what they are good at, focus on the markets they know.

This applies to San Francisco-based Funzio as well, the other big GREE purchase in 2012, as Araki notes that their US studio is not only stable but actually growing. The Funzio-developed title Knights & Dragons has been doing pretty well of late in the US market, which has been ranking well on the iOS top grossing charts in the US thanks to continued in-game events. Crime City is another Funzio title that has fared well in many markets.

However, Araki admits that they will ~~stop~~ cut back on developing card battle games for the US market however, as that genre is “not huge,” and already pretty saturated. Of course, the card battle genre is still a massive market in Japan, and GREE will continue to develop such titles at home [1].

GREE’s refocus in the coming year will be largely about increasing their hit-ratio, says Araki in true gamer lingo. The company has yet to produce the big runaway hit recently that we might have expected from them.

And now, with more competition at home and abroad, GREE still has a significant challenge ahead if it wants to win the attention of the world’s mobile gamers.

A little more on this point. GREE’s NFL Elite card battle game (which I’ve been a big fan of, as I wrote in my review here) is now doing well, now that the 2013 NFL season has kicked off. Since it was rebranded from NFL Shuffle back on September 3rd, the game has been ranked in or near the top ten for the iOS US market. The other sports card battle game, MLB Full Deck, has not been as fortunate, Araki noting that we have “almost stopped” it. ↩

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Talking with Japanese indie developer SummerTime Studios at Tokyo Game Show [Video]

Rick Martin 2013.09.19

Earlier this month we stumbled across Ancient Surfer a gem of a Japanese indie developer, SummerTime Studio based out of Okinawa. So I suppose I should not have been surprised to see them turn up in the indie section of the Tokyo Game Show 2013, which kicked off today. Ancient Surfer currently tops the iOS sports category in 11 countries But I was surprised. Very pleasantly so, in fact. We rarely get a chance to mention any companies based out of Okinawa. And to see Ancient Surfer doing so well right now is especially good to see. We spoke with the company’s president, Hirotsu Takeyasu, who told us that Ancient Surfer has surpassed 500,000 downloads globally. As we look at the app rankings right now, we can see that it tops the iOS sports category in 11 countries, mostly around Asia. SummerTime Studio was founded back in 2011, and to date has made eight apps of their own, as well as many more for clients. They will be exhibiting in the quiet indie corner of the Tokyo Game Show for the next few days, so be sure not to miss them. If you haven’t tried Ancient Surfer yet, check out…

Earlier this month we stumbled across Ancient Surfer a gem of a Japanese indie developer, SummerTime Studio based out of Okinawa. So I suppose I should not have been surprised to see them turn up in the indie section of the Tokyo Game Show 2013, which kicked off today.

Ancient Surfer currently tops the iOS sports category in 11 countries

But I was surprised. Very pleasantly so, in fact. We rarely get a chance to mention any companies based out of Okinawa. And to see Ancient Surfer doing so well right now is especially good to see.

We spoke with the company’s president, Hirotsu Takeyasu, who told us that Ancient Surfer has surpassed 500,000 downloads globally. As we look at the app rankings right now, we can see that it tops the iOS sports category in 11 countries, mostly around Asia.

SummerTime Studio was founded back in 2011, and to date has made eight apps of their own, as well as many more for clients. They will be exhibiting in the quiet indie corner of the Tokyo Game Show for the next few days, so be sure not to miss them.

If you haven’t tried Ancient Surfer yet, check out our demo video below. Or pick it up for free over on the App Store or from Google Play.

Big thanks to my colleague Yukari Mistuhashi, who conducted a number of fun interviews today, including the one above.

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Voltage makes romantic fantasy into reality at Tokyo Game Show 2013 [Video]

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.09.19

Today was the opening day of the Tokyo Game Show 2013. At this year’s event we wanted to focus on mobile developers in particular. And given the popularity of love simulation games here in Japan, we were not surprised to find a section dedicated to developers of this genre. Readers might recall that back in May we wrote about one of these games, called ‘Office Secrets’. And the company behind the app, Voltage, was in attendance today, with a very interesting booth. Voltage has produced over 50 apps in total, all love simulations. Here visitors could play the popular mobile game, but also take photos with real ‘ikemen’ (Japanese for ‘good-looking’) on a faux wedding ceremony backdrop (pictured above). It took the fantasy of the game made into a reality for fans. Voltage provides over 50 apps in total, which is a pretty impressive total — even more impressive when you consider that they are all of the love simulation variety. According to reps Mayuko Sugihara and Emiri Okawa, of their many mobile applications, the most popular app is ‘Chikai no kiss wa totsuzenni’ (roughly translated as ‘The Sudden Kiss for a Promise’). With this app, female users can play…

Today was the opening day of the Tokyo Game Show 2013. At this year’s event we wanted to focus on mobile developers in particular. And given the popularity of love simulation games here in Japan, we were not surprised to find a section dedicated to developers of this genre. Readers might recall that back in May we wrote about one of these games, called ‘Office Secrets’. And the company behind the app, Voltage, was in attendance today, with a very interesting booth.

Voltage has produced over 50 apps in total, all love simulations.

Here visitors could play the popular mobile game, but also take photos with real ‘ikemen’ (Japanese for ‘good-looking’) on a faux wedding ceremony backdrop (pictured above). It took the fantasy of the game made into a reality for fans.

Voltage provides over 50 apps in total, which is a pretty impressive total — even more impressive when you consider that they are all of the love simulation variety. According to reps Mayuko Sugihara and Emiri Okawa, of their many mobile applications, the most popular app is ‘Chikai no kiss wa totsuzenni’ (roughly translated as ‘The Sudden Kiss for a Promise’). With this app, female users can play a role as the main character who is in a fake marriage with a handsome guy.

Chikai no kiss wa totsuzenni is used by a wide-range of women from age 19 to 44, but the most active users are women in their 30s. Many are returning users due to the fact that the romance progresses and gets more interesting as the story moves forward.

Voltage plans to release at least one app per month, with plans to develop similar games that men can enjoy as well.

Check out our interview with Emiri Okawa from Voltage in the video below.

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Talking with Japanese indie developer SummerTime Studios at Tokyo Game Show [Video]

Voltage makes romantic fantasy into reality at Tokyo Game Show 2013 [Video]

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