Console, Social & Mobile Gaming in Japan with Serkan Toto

Leong Chung Wei Bernard 10.Sep.2014

Serkan Toto, CEO of Kantan Games Inc discuss the evolving console, social and mobile gaming scene in Japan & how the Japan technology giants, Softbank & Rakuten strike out globally.

Our second episode of Analyse Asia features Dr Serkan Toto (@serkantoto), CEO of Kantan Games Inc and former TechCrunch correspondent in Asia. We focus on the evolution of the gaming scene in Japan from its leadership position in console games through Sony, SEGA and Nintendo to the present state in mobile and social gaming with the social networking platforms (LINE, Mixi, DeNA and GREE), and dive deeply into looking at the business model, customer acquisition channels and how games from the other parts of the world penetrate into Japan. We extract Serkan’s insight on the state of global gaming companies and why they end up becoming one track ponies like Hollywood movie studios, and his thoughts on the Japanese technology scene and how the giant players such as Softbank and Rakuten are faring so far in their global expansion out to the world. Last but not least, both Serkan and Bernard gave their predictions on the Apple Event @ 9/9/2014 just three hours before it started.