Japanese mobile games outfit GREE and Yahoo Japan signed a wide-ranging deal in November 2012, and today the two companies have announced that they will be opening a joint-venture focused on developing social games for smartphones next month. The new entity will be tentatively named “GxYz” and will open business on March 15.
This new business is backed by around $2.2 million in investment funds from both parties and is designed to build on the successes of both companies — GREE as one of Japan’s top mobile games creators, and Yahoo Japan as the country’s leading Web content firm. The announcement said that the establishment of GxYz will strengthen the two company’s smartphone social gaming business partnership through the user acquisition capabilities of Yahoo! JAPAN and the social gaming development and operational expertise of GREE. Their aim is to develop exceptional social games that will “open up new possibilities in the game development business.”
A GREE representative confirmed that as expected, the venture “will be focused on the Japanese market”. There have been no confirmation on upcoming titles at this point, but the market has been told to expect “several” games to be released within the year. The deal is clearly a significant one for GREE because Japan continues to be a very lucrative market for social gaming. The company recorded a 9 percent year-on-year drop in profits during its latest fiscal quarter, citing the cost of global expansion as a key factor.
[ via The Next Web ]