Nintendo & Smartphone Gaming in Japan 2017 with Serkan Toto
Serkan Toto, CEO of Kantan Games Japan, joined us in a conversation to discuss Nintendo’s progress and the smartphone gaming space within Japan in 2017. We began with a conversation on Nintendo’s recent forays with mobile gaming, the surprise success of the Nintendo Switch console and how Niantic’s Pokemon game has spurred their growth in the past year. Last but not least, Serkan discussed the recent stagnation in smartphone gaming in Japan and its impact to the gaming industry.
Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):
- Serkan Toto (@serkantoto, LinkedIn, Website), CEO of Kantan Games JP [0:39]
- What have you been up to? [0:58]
- Nintendo in 2017 [1:11]
- One of the biggest video game shows in the West, E3 in Los Angeles, is starting next week. What do you expect from Nintendo? Note: the episode is recorded before the E3 Conference. [1:29]
- What has been the latest update with Nintendo’s market capitalization and share price and what are driving their growth at the moment? Nintendo’s market capitalization is close to overtake Activision Blizzard if its share price kept increasing. [2:20]
- How has Nintendo progressed with their mobile gaming initiatives? [3:22]
- Super Mario Run
- Fire Emblem Heroes
- Is Nintendo getting better with each new mobile game they launched in the market? [4:50]
- Animal Crossing (a progenitor of Farmville and Zynga drew the inspiration from this Nintendo game).
- Can you briefly talk about Nintendo Switch? How does it work and why has it been popular despite a lot of people threw cold water over it & now realize that it’s a blast? [6:09]
- What can you say about Nintendo’s unique launch strategy for the Switch? [9:36]
- How do you expect Switch’s lifetime sales to pan out? The Wii (launched in 2006) sold a staggering 101 million times. [10:54]
- How does Switch compare with Sony’s PS4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One in this generation of video games? [11:15]
- What are the key things that is helping Nintendo to rise in 2017 particularly with the gaming content? [12:32]
- Super Mario Run
- Zelda
- Animal Crossing
- Splatoon 2
- Since our last conversation on Pokemon Go and Nintendo, how has the Pokemon company benefitted from the AR game? [14:18]
- How is Pokemon Go being received by Japan gamers? [15:37]
- So, are you bullish or bearish about Nintendo’s prospects this year? [17:20]
- Japan’s smartphone gaming market [17:50]
- Why is the Japanese smartphone gaming market stagnated recently? What are the drivers and how do you think that it can start growing again? [18:05]
- How are the other mobile gaming giants, DeNA, Gree or Mixi faring so far? [19:19]
Podcast Information:
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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Altizen and sign up for their mailing list. Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.
