Sony And Nintendo Expand In Asia

Sony and Nintendo (separately, of course) are the latest to look outside Japan toward the primarily PC-based online game market in Asia, each with several new business initiatives, reports the Nikkei.

Many companies in the game industry are prioritizing mainland Asian expansions as a way to grow their business and tap into the devoted game market there. According to the Nikkei, Nintendo has reportedly been supporting a South Korean developer who's doing a number of titles including a touch screen-based DS game.

The DS reportedly sold 1.4 million units in South Korea, and 2.6 million game titles. Nintendo is looking at Taiwan as well for DS sales, and will sell localized DS systems in cell phone stores there.

Thompson Financial also reported on what Sony's doing to catch some of that audience:

Here's some good news, bad news, and then good news again! The first good news is that Namco Bandai's Xbox 360 exclusive Tales of Vesperia now has a demo up on Xbox Live. The bad news? Currently the demo is only available in India and Asia...but do not fret! There is no fretting! Users in other regions who just so happen to have a Japanese Silver account set up are more than welcome to download the demo and fool around with the title. The icing on this Oreo good-bad-good cake? The demo only weighs in at 278 MB, and it runs in good old English, so no battling with the squigglies. Sweet!

Demo: Tales of Vesperia [Xbox Live's Major Nelson]

Square Enix published, tri-Ace developed Xbox 360 title Infinite Undiscovery has been dated for North America (9/2), Europe (9/5), Japan (9/11) and Asia (9/11). The North America and Europe dates are ship dates, but presumably the other dates are actual in-store dates.

Infinite Undiscovery Dated [Famitsu]

Microsoft Slashes Xbox 360 Prices Through Asia

Microsoft, apparently having some difficulty infiltrating Asian markets, has reduced prices of the Xbox 360 in many areas. The biggest price reduction (20 percent to $366) happened in Singapore, though Taiwan's price drop wasn't far behind (17 percent to $340). Hong Kong and Korea both received smaller price reductions as well.

I'm not positive that increasing Xbox sales in Asia is as predictable as the rest of the world where the drop price, grow sales technique reigns supreme. But, you know, it probably won't hurt.

Microsoft Cuts Xbox 360 Prices in Four Asian Markets [Bloomberg via Gamasutra][image]

Take-Two Talks Asian Expansion As If No Big Company Was Trying Desperately To Buy Them

"Hubert Larenaudie is an experienced senior executive who has successfully built or expanded Asia Pacific operations for prominent interactive entertainment and consumer goods companies," said Gary Dale. "His in-depth knowledge of the region; his skill in creating the right product development, distribution and marketing strategy for each local market; and his track record of driving growth will help Take-Two realize the tremendous opportunities in APAC."

Mario Kart Wii <3 Freeloader?

It appears that those who were worried about Japanese copies of Mario Kart Wii not loading on US Wiis through Freeloader may have been breaking a sweat for nothing. Import retailer NCS tested the game on v3.1U firmware and found it to run just fine. Yes, this information directly conflicts with an earlier report from Play Asia, but there's a good chance that Play Asia tested the game with v3.0U firmware which NCS confirmed will not play the game.

In other words, all hope is not lost. Still, go forth at your own risk, there may be bananas around the bend.

NCS News Update [NCS]

Play-Asia's Late Easter Sale Is Hopped Up On Savings

Mega importer Play-Asia is slashing prices on just about everything with its Easter Egg sale. Everything (not released in the past 30 days) has been reduced 20% or more, with a handful of exceptions. The better news? You don't have to be an Japanese import enthusiast to save, as plenty of Play-Asia's stock is domestic and Asian stuff. That means you can snag deals like Ouendan 2 for $24 as well as recent releases like Devil May Cry 4 for well below retail. You could even secure one of those DualShock 3's for a song (read: cheaper than US retail). Yes, you can even get a deal on The IDOLM@STER.

Toys, movies, music! Aaaah! This may read like an advertisement, but I promise this is genuine excitement. There's plenty to look at but make sure you make your decision by March 31. Just don't grab my copy of Senko no Ronde and Sega Ages 2500: Galaxy Force II before I get my credit card out. Thanks.

Easter Egg Sale [Play-Asia]

Guitar Hero's World Domination Plans: Europe, Asia, "Multiple Instruments"

Asian Halo 3 Bundle Misses Christmas By Two Months

PlayStation 2 dead? Ha! At the Taipei Game Show, Sony unveiled a new limited edition PS2 for Asia. Set to drop on February 4th, the Crimson Red Treasure PS2 will help ring in the Lunar New Year. No word on a Western release.

SCE Taiwan [Game Watch Impress via Siliconera]

Outspark Gets Lots of Funding, Talks Asian Games in the US

Worlds in Motion has an interesting Q&A up with Susan Choe and Nick Foster of Outspark, a company that has imported games like Fiesta and Secret of the Solstice for US audiences. Outspark has managed to secure $11 million USD in funding from various sources to "help PC-based online games find the same market in North America as they currently enjoy in Asia," and Choe and Foster talk about everything from importing Korean games wholesale, how they put together the project in the first place, and the carpal tunnel inducing process of picking what games to bring over:

... We all played games, to a point where I needed acupuncture for my wrist! And we played games, from MMORPGs, to first-person shooters, to racing games ....

But, in a sense, we were really looking for games that everybody can play, even the thirty-five year old women, without a lot of complications. But there are certain specific criteria we also look for in the game developers: 1. They believe in the North American, Western market. 2. They have the capacity to work with us, because — as you guys know — these games, once they're launched, that's the beginning of your work, not the end, unlike the console games.

It's an interesting look at one company who is trying to bring over some fresh blood while still appealing to a wide audience (and has the funding to back up their effort) - well worth a read through if you have the time.

Q&A - Outspark Gets $11 M Funding, Talks 'Virtual Playground' [Worlds In Motion]

The already rocky launch of Hellgate: London in Asia has gotten even rockier. After several weeks of server crashing issues, a patch known as Patch0 was created to help solve the problem. After numerous attempts to apply the patch to the servers it was discovered that the only way to make it work would be to perform a complete character wipe. Needless to say, Asian players of the game who have spent hours leveling up their characters are furious and in an attempt to appease them, IAH Games is offering players a months worth of free play time. Now at least they won't have to pay for all the time they will have to spend grinding back up to where they were before the wipe if they choose to continue playing.

You can read IAH Game's notice about the wipe after the jump

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Ubisoft Opens Second Studio In China

"The success of our studio in Shanghai, which has been further confirmed with the launch of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 for the PLAYSTATION 3 system, has encouraged us to extend our growth in China," said Christine Burgess-Quémard, executive director, Worldwide Studios at Ubisoft. "We are convinced that Chengdu offers the perfect environment for our expansion..."

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