The Nintendo and DeNA Deal with Serkan Toto
Serkan Toto of Kantan Games is back on the podcast to discuss the mega deal between Nintendo and DeNA which created a dent in the gaming space for 2015. We discussed the pre and post press conference, speculated the motivation in what pushed Nintendo to break its sacred code of not venturing into mobile games, and how their competitors will respond as a result of this deal. We also broke down the mechanics of this deal and Serkan offered his bullish perspective on Nintendo’s future as a gaming company. While dissecting the news, Serkan helped to close the understanding on how LINE’s curated games platform is not working against Kakao Talk from Korea which adopted the opposite model, and also discussed how SoftBank is a “Berkshire Hathaway” for technology investments with successful forays in gaming space with SuperCell and GungHo, not to mention their past investments from marketplaces to taxi apps all over the world.
Here are the interesting links for our discussion:
- Serkan Toto (@SerkanToto) and his gaming consultancy: Kantan Games.
- The press conference which announced the alliance between DeNA and Nintendo.
- Back history of DeNA (mobile games) and Nintendo (Console Game Maker)
- What is the motivation behind this deal? Why is it such a big deal for Nintendo to go mobile and what can possibly go wrong for them in the coming months ahead?
- What are the terms of the deal and how does the market respond to the announcement?
- Why did Nintendo choose DeNA and not GREE or any other big mobile game maker? Will we see the competitors entering into alliance from Microsoft or Sony working with GREE?
- When will the first games come out?
- How will the deal change the gaming industry on a whole?
- SuperCell and Softbank: A successful investment
- Why is Supercell succeeding after acquisition? Revenue of Clash of Clans and Hayday reaching US$1.7B
- Is Supercell the only global mobile gaming company in the world against King (Candy Crush)?
- LINE Games Platform
- Why is LINE losing to Kakao Talk in how they curated games on their platform?
- Where is LINE going to IPO? What’s SoftBank play if they invest in LINE?
- SoftBank: The “Berkshire Hathaway” of Tech
- SoftBank’s control of the two gaming giants: SuperCell and GungHo.
- Why are they consistently getting it right on technology investments across different sectors? Reference: Jon Russell’s article on why SoftBank is a challenger to Uber in the rest of the world.
- Trends on Japanese gaming companies:
- Why are most of them (GREE, DeNA) running venture firms to run investments on other sectors?
- What is the next big deal after Nintendo and DeNA?
- How is the gaming industry affected by the upcoming LINE IPO?
Podcast Information:
The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) and Linkcious (and check out their other product, Chiibi).
