Category Archives: Asia

Xbox One will launch across various Asian territories in 2014, but there’s no word of Japan yet, possibly because Xbox 360 has performed poorly there over the years.

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Sony has dissolved Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, Asia and Pan-Asia into a single entity, dubbed Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia.

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PS Vita is getting… nope not a price cut, but another new colour courtesy of Sony. The ‘Ice Silver’ model will launch across Asia this month.

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Disney Interactive has signed a deal with Korean firm Smilegate to develop a Marvel MOBA. So far, the game is only slated for the Asia market, but this can potentially change in the future, although neither firm has commented on the matter. The game is currently codenamed Project PK and is slated for release in 2014. Thanks,MMO Culture.

Civilization Online has been announced by Take-Two and is being developed in partnership with South Korean-based studio XLGAMES with CEO Jake Song leading the development.

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Update: GI International has reported that around 18 staff members have been affected by this action

The THQ Asia-Pacific office based in Melbourne, Australia is to close in the coming months, MCV Pacific has reported. THQ’s sales and distribution interests in the region will be transferred to All Interactive Entertainment.

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The Vita’s slow spread around the globe continues this month with SCE Hong Kong announcing a September 14 launch for the portable in Thailand. The console will come bundled with Uncharted: Golden Abyss or LittleBigPlanet for THB13,990, or alone for THB11,990. Those who pre-order the first will score a bonus Uncharted case and Vita t-shirt, with the second offering a LittleBigPlanet seating mat and luggage bag.

Thanks, Gamespot.

Following the launch last month of its site servicing the Middle East, IGN has signed a licensing deal with Blah! Asia – a division of Spiral Media – to publish IGN Asia Pacific. The site is available in three languages: English, Chinese Mandarin and Malay and will cater to ten markets including Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong and China.

IGN Asia Pacific editor-in-chief, Maxime Villandré said, “We will be reaching out to players with a wider variety of game titles and indulge it with unique voices: stories and exclusives delivered in local languages by resident gamers, heroes and industry players, which establish rapport on content that energizes 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.