Category Archives: Asia

Unity Technologies’ general manager for Asia, John Goodale, has spoken openly about the positive effects of piracy and has stated that he believes it has been to the company’s advantage in seeding a market in China.

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The latest rumour puts the Vita down for a release before the end of the year in Japan and beyond, with a Western release to follow in March 2012.

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Thanks to a new consumer protection law recently passed in Taiwan, Apple has agreed to implement a new 7-day return policy in the App Store in that country. The rest of the world is still waiting though.

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Capcom has created a “second brand” in a bid to push development and distribution of social games on smartphones and differentiate from its core videogame activity.

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A new report from games industry market analyst firm Pearl Research suggests Internet cafes are still a major motivator in Asian game markets.

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Sony Computer Entertainment Hong Kong boss Katsuhiko Murase has said that PSN has seen delays in Asia due to “licensing issues”.

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The first gameplay footage of free-to-play Crytek FPS Warface has emerged, while Crytek MD Avni Yerli has said the Asian game represents a “major stepping stone” for the studio.

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Niko Partners has estimated, thanks to a recent study, that the South East Asian online market is will be worth $917 million by the end of the year, and worth $1.7 billion by 2014.

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Those keen on playing StarCraft II in Southeast Asia are being given different fee-based options by Blizzard in order to take their game online.

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The PC Gaming Alliance has released its Horizons Hardware research report, and it found the annual shipment volumes PC gaming hardware market in 2009 were two times larger than shipments of PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 combined for the same period.

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Square Enix has reiterated that Final Fantasy XIII won’t be coming to Xbox 360 in Asia.

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Yasuhide Kobayashi, VP of Sony’s Japan Studio and head of Last Guardian’s development, told DICE Summit Asia today that Japanese games-makers must now appeal to western tastes or die.

“There are so many issues we have to solve, and the biggest challenge is that the market in Japan is shrinking – they key is gaining success in the US and Europe,” he said.

“At the time of the original PlayStation the Japanese market was one third of the global market, and production costs weren’t that high – so we were able to generate profit from that market alone.

“But now we’re in the era of the PlayStation 3, and the Japanese market is only one fifth of the global market – when it comes to production costs, those are swelling, so it means that unless we gain success in the overseas market our studio will go bankrupt. It’s a crisis we recognise,” he added.

Kobayashi admitted that Last Guardian was named as such to appeal to US and European gamers.

Lots more on GI.

Microsoft is to hold a press conference in Japan tomorrow in order to announce Asian 360 price cuts, according to Microsoft Hong Kong’s Julie Leong, NetworkWorld reports.

According to that piece, parts of Asia-Pacific will begin enjoying dropped 360s on on September 10.

The SRP of an Elite will be lowered by around 28 percent to US$305 in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

More through there. Thanks, Kotaku.

At the Edinburgh Interactive Conference, BMO Capital Markets’ Edward Williams told attendees that the gaming market has suffered “significant disruption” to its business model.

“For Western publishers, profitability hasn’t grown at all in the past few years and that’s before we take 2009 into account,” he said while stating that the opposite could be claimed from the Chinese sector.

Chinese firms were seeing improved profits due to the PC market and direct download methods rather than the traditional way used by Western firms releasing titles on DVD per retail outlets. Developers in China also do not have to pay as much in royalties to console makers because of the low number of console users.

Three factors, Williams explained, are causing the Western games market to decline:

• Games are getting larger, which meant longer development time and larger staff costs.
• In the 1990s the PlayStation accounted for 80% of the market, today the console space is very fragmented, so developers have to work on many platforms at any one time.
• The cost of licensing intellectual property or gaining official sports body endorsement (such as FIFA or FIA) has gone up.

Speaking to the BBC, Peter Moore agreed that while there’s a difference in the markets, Westerner will start warming up to digital distribution soon.

“In China, PC and mobile platforms will continue to dominate,” he said. “There isn’t the necessity to buy other pieces of hardware and it is our job to service that. In Europe we are going to see more content that’s delivered electronically, be that through Steam, Xbox Live or whatever.”

“The release of Tiger Woods online as a free to play experience will be the real test of the Western consumer’s appetite for digital downloading.”

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences said today that the DICE Summit – thus far restricted to Las Vegas – is to get an Asian version this year.

The new event will take place at Singapore’s Suntec Center, the same venue used for Games Convention Asia, on September 17.

GPG’s Chris Taylor and NanaON-Sha boss Masaya Matsuura are both to “feature,” apparently.

There’s a press release here. Thanks, Joystiq.

Global Industry Analysts (GIA) expects the global gaming market to reach $91 billion by 2015.

The report, titled Video Games: A Global Strategic Business Report, was complied by GIA reviewing trends in gaming from 2001-2015.

It was concluded that growth can be attributed to the climbing installed bases of consoles, the popularity of MMOs, mobile games, more customers acquiring high speed internet, and the increased access to all of these in developing countries in Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

Due to purchasing figures for PS3, Wii and Xbox 360, gamers in Europe and North America spent the most in 2009, with East Asia and Japan driving the sales of MMOs, and mobile phones games driving the market in developing countries.

The full report can be viewed here.

Via IndustryGamers.

Warhammer Online is to launch in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau next week via GigaMedia’s FunTown game platform, Kotaku reports.

The Mythic MMO currently has around 300,000 subs in the US.

Up to 8,450 game industry professionals have lost their jobs since July 2008, according to analyst Wanda Meloni.

Around 6,300 jobs have been lost from the North American trade, the rest coming from Asia and the UK.

Meloni noted that multiple studios have bitten the dust during the period.

“A handful of others are on life support, operating with a skeletal workforce and actively looking for buyers,” she said.

More on Gama.

Activision boss Bobby Kotick’s told Reuters that global economic gloom means console-makers should get their machines below $199 to see “mass” results.

“The price on platforms today has still not gotten down to mass-market price points and I think when you’re in the economic circumstances that the world has found itself in, there really is a difference between a $199 game system and a $299 game system,” he said.

Kotick added that he didn’t expect such a move, presumably talking primarily about PS3.

The exec also said that further sales success could also be achieved regionally.

“We’re just scratching the surface of opportunity as a publisher in Europe. There’s a lot more that we can do,” he said.

“In China and Korea, Blizzard has had great success but Activision products have not really had any success there.”

Lots more through there.

The Asian version of From Software’s Ninja Blade’s been released, says Siliconera, and it’s region-free. And in English.

You should, therefore, buy it. Don’t think. Thinking won’t get you anywhere. Buying Ninja Blade will.

Thanks, Kotaku.