10.02.2015

Level-5 and Dentsu establish a joint company and sell Yo-Kai Watch in a global market


Japanese game company Level-5 and advertising agency Dentsu established joint company "LEVEL-5 abby Inc." to sell Level-5's contents to the global market. Their first work is to sell Yo-Kai Watch in the United States. Company location is California Santa Monica, CEO is Akihiro Hino(He is also CEO of LEVEL-5), as for the stocks constitution, Level-5 is 51% and Dentsu 49%.


 "abby" is a compound coined word. "a" comes from "all" and "anything", and "bby" comes from "hobby". They wrestle the global market using the cross-media strategy that LEVEL-5 is good at. In the beginning, They develop Yo-Kai Watch, Little Battlers Experience, and Snack World(Their latest project) in various forms such as the anime, toys, comics, music, and the show in the Western countries.

In addition, they begin broadcast of the anime series of Yo-Kai Watch on October 5 in Disney XD.


In this anime, all the texts become the alphabet notation, american voice actors perform and the names of some characters are changed to the English name. For example, Keita Amano of the leading role becomes "Nathan Adams". Following this, they start broadcast of anime on October 10 in Canada, publish the Manga series from VIZ Media on November 3, release games for Nintendo 3DS on November 6, and release toys from Hasbro on Winter of 2016. They push forward projects steadily for a holiday season.



You can take selfie with the drink vending machine

Print -Club, the photobooth which can take  cute selfie photo stickers is popular among school girls. If drink vending machines have this function? Drink company Kirin Beverage provides digital signage drink vending machine with selfie function in major cities in Japan from this month.


When the clientage buys drinks from this vending machine, they can take selfie with a camera attached it. A frame such as Print -Club is added to selfie, and clientage can receive selfie from an account of messaging application LINE.


This function was realized by utilization of the API "LINE business connect" that LINE provided for companies. In addition, Intel processor is put on this vending machine because LINE cooperates with Intel in innovation. Furthermore, this vending machine has other functions of advid, disaster information, English, and Korean support.

10.01.2015

Pen type toy capturing colors


Toy company TakaraTomy released the digital doodle pen "Color Catch Pen" which captured colors of various things. It does not look for colors from a palette and takes colors from the things. This has a color sensor that distinguishes 24 colors, and for example, the LED light which a pen has changes in red when children push a sensor to an apple. In addition, this has a speaker, and when children captured colors, it inform it in a voice in this way "This is red, a color of the apples". Furthermore, children can do drawing using a tablet, application, and the captured colors. It is released for 3,800 yen, and the application is free.

Safe 3D printing pen using the light


The 3D printer is the hot topic in Japan and the fans of 3D printing pen are increasing, too. Therefore toy company Mega House releases the 3D printing pen "3D Dream Arts Pen" that children are usable safely in November. This is comprised of the pen that resin was set, "magical light" that using the visible ray LED, and the design sheet which various patterns were drawn on. When users draw lines along the illustration of the design sheet and irradiate magical light in it for one minute, resin stiffens. Because it does not generate heat and does not use ultraviolet rays, children can use it willingly. It has eight kinds of color variations and is one 1,450 yen.


Supercell exhibits the decent booth and It was supported by fans in Tokyo Game Show 2015


Supercell participated in Tokyo Game Show for the first time, exhibited huge banner ads and booth, and held fan event TOKYO CLASH 2015 on a public days. Judging from a conclusion, they were great successes.






The huge booth which was comprised of large electric light screens, the photo area with statue of characters, and two air balloons which were going to drop bombs were displayed overhead. Well...though it was a huge booth, they exhibited only Clash of Clans in Tokyo Game Show 2015. This is very exceptional. Usually, the game companies exhibiting gorgeous huge booths prepare various games and acquire presses, business partners, and fans. However, a booth of Supercell did not have their other games Hay Day and Boom Beach. Therefore their booth in business days was dull very much.

However, it was like that in public days.

A W E S O M E !
Clans of fans were right in the middle of doing a time trial in TOKYO CLASH 2015, and visitors who gathered to a booth stared at it.

In addition, they exhibited 5v5 clans battle and single play time trial of the Tokyo Game Show 2015 limited version. Visitors made a very long queue as one lap of booth to play them.

Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen did Tweet in this way.



Their booth did not have the things which recent Tokyo game show had by all means. These are sexy booth babes, celebrities of poster boy or girl, and serial number that players can change for the virtual goods of games. In particular, serial number came to be essential with online games and the spread of mobile games. If western feminism activists come to Tokyo Game Show, they will faint because of too much rage! :D

ex: Booth babe of mobile game company 6waves from Hong Kong. This style is not possible in China because regulated by the gov.
via http://www.rbbtoday.com/article/img/2015/09/18/135365/486210.html

Sony Mobile appealed to visitors for a waterproofing function of their smartphone Xperia Z4 using a bathtub and sexy models.
via http://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/1509/18/news143.html

Luckily or unluckily, Japanese large-scale events do not have any taboos. In spite of it, Supercell did the simple and decent exhibition. Surely, banner ads, booth and bag of novelty goods were huge. But, staff of the booth had both men and women, and they wore the same T-shirt, appearing in TOKYO CLASH 2015 only in players clans and youtubers who are specialized in games, and they continued showing visitors only Clash of Clans earnestly. As a result, TOKYO CLASH 2015 really became lively like exciting games of e-sports. Well, it was right e-sports itself!


Supercell did the exhibition that was decent as a game company. Is Booth babes sexism? That's absolute nonsense! Regulation of the gov. is the most unreasonable. However, it is not ideal state of the trade fair for games that visitors pay attention only to sexy women without checking games. And it is the present conditions, the most of serial numbers which game companies prepared for their fans are exhibited at online auction.

In such situation, it is the highlights of Tokyo Game Show 2015 that an Finnish game company proved that game companies can get fans only by a fun game without booth babes, celebrities, and serial number. According to Mr. Ilkka Paananen, this was the first time that Supercell exhibited a booth in trade fair for games. They may exhibit from now on in other trade fairs.



Another photos of Tokyo Game Show 2015 are here
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1136638589698823.1073741850.195197613842930&type=3