日本DeNA与美国ngmoco两家公司的联姻，使日本社交游戏巨头能否在海外复制本土成功模式成了业内的关注焦点，从一些市场调研公司的数据来看，日本手机游戏的全球化只是一个时间早晚的问题。

DeNA's Mobage-town

据NPD的调查显示，在最近三个月中，美国年龄在6岁以上的社交游戏玩家已超过全国人口的20%，目前美国在线游戏玩家已突破7700万人，而且这一数据还将持续增长。NPD行业分析师Anita Frazier表示，尽管有35%的社交游戏用户是新玩家，但也有大量的其他类型游戏玩家涌入了社交游戏平台，社交游戏抢占了他们投入其他游戏的大量时间和金钱，相信整个游戏行业迟早会认识到社交游戏的巨大影响力。

任天堂和索尼是美国游戏玩家最为熟悉的日本游戏公司，但智能手机平台的兴起已让掌机用户规模大为缩水，DeNA和GREE等手机游戏公司开始趁势向太平洋彼岸扩张自己的势力范围。据游戏邦了解，GREE和DeNA旗下的社交游戏平台Mobage-town在日本手机游戏市场的运营极为成功，当前的净销售额分别增长了82%和216%。

GREE和DeNA约有80%的营收来自虚拟商品交易、游戏内置广告、附加广告、虚拟形象，另外20%是传统广告营收。日本另一家大型手机社交网站Mixi则为第三方开发商打造了一个不需要过度依赖广告的游戏平台。

Mobile Social Network Users in Japan and the US

据游戏邦所知，社交网站在日本并不是十分受捧，因为大多数用户都习惯通过手机访问Mixi这类社交平台。美国和日本两国的手机社交网络覆盖率都已接近22%，有36%的美国人曾玩过手机游戏，还有41%是社交网站用户，由此不难判断，手机社交网站很快就会成为一个主流发展趋势。

US Gamers by platform

日本手机社交网站用户最近已突破6500万人，比2010年初增长了40%。其中，GREE平台的用户人数最多，大约2200万人，Mobage在2160万人左右，Mixi也将近2160万人。

这种现象也引起了一些手机制造商的关注，前不久三星还宣布与DeNA进行合作，将后者的社交游戏平台Mobage植入三星Android智能手机中。

那么西方手机社交游戏平台的表现又如何呢？游戏邦发现，跨平台手机社交游戏平台OpenFeint在圣诞期间新增了45万名新用户，仅四天就创造了140万次下载量，现在用户总数已超过5500万人。面对这样的劲敌，DeNA还真不能掉心轻心，更何况木瓜移动、Scoreloop等平台也睁紧了这块市场蛋糕。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

As DeNA-ngmoco set its gaze on the western frontier, we can’t help but wonder if Japanese companies can duplicate their success across the Pacific. Will the mobile gaming craze catch on? It’s only a matter of time. More after the jump.

We took a look recently at some gaming-related statistics here at SocialTimes that shed light into how gamers are increasingly moving towards social network gaming. According to research from the NPD Group, over 20% of the U.S. population ages 6 and older reports having played a social network game in the past 3 months. There are currently over 77 million online gamers – a number that is set to expand over the coming years.

“Although 35 percent of social network gamers are new to gaming, it’s clear that a lot of existing gamers have been drawn into the social network gaming arena as well,” said Anita Frazier, Industry Analyst, The NPD Group. “This impacts both the time they spend with other types of gaming, as well as the amount of money they’re spending on gaming. As more players are drawn into these games, the entire games industry is going to feel, and have to adjust to, the impact.”

Japan-based Nintendo and Sony are 2 great examples of companies out of the east that have had a tremendous impact on the U.S. population. As console adoption slows compared to smartphones, players such as DeNA and GREE will be looking to expand past the pacific frontiers to increase market share. GREE and Mobage-town, DeNA’s core SNS, have been capitalizing on the mobile gaming market in Japan and are expected to grow their net sales by 82% and 216%, respectively, according to eMarketer.

Roughly 80% of the revenues GREE and DeNA make come from item billing, in-game ads, affiliate ads and avatars, while 20% are comprised of traditional ads. Mixi, also one of the largest mobile social network in Japan, opened its platform to attract 3rd party developers to reduce dependancy on ads.

Japan’s never been strong on social networking websites because users typically use their mobile device to connect to SNS such as mixi. The mobile social network penetration in both U.S. and Japan is close to 22 percent. With 36 percent of the U.S. population having gamed through mobile devices and 41 percent having used social networks, it’s only a matter of time before everything becomes social and in some cases, mobile.

Japanese mobile social networkers have topped the 65M mark recently, a jump of 40 percent from a year earlier. GREE has about 22M, and Mobage has roughly 21.6M. Mixi follows closely with 21.6M registrants.

Recently Samsung and DeNA struck a deal in which DeNA’s social gaming platform Mobage, which currently has over 20M users, would come pre-installed on Samsung devices which will be utilizing the Android operating system.

What about existing players that are striving to gain traction in the west? The cross platform mobile social network OpenFeint has been seeing some impressive numbers – adding roughly 450,000 new users on Christmas leading up 1.4M total downloads over the four day period according to Pocket Gamer. WIth over 55 million strong users, it won’t simply be a walk in the park for DeNA especially as others like PapayaMobile and Scoreloop compete in the same space.（source:socialtimes）