Sega joins forces with smartphone developer

towa-no-tsurugi-001

Recently, in an issue Famitsu magazine, Sega Networks announced they were teaming with the developer Aiming, who is a smartphone developer based out of Tokyo. Aiming’s president, Tadashi Shiiba, explained their first planned game entitled, Towa no Tsurugi,

Towa no Tsurugi is based along the same lines as an overhead 3D multiplayer online RPG,” explained Aiming president Tadashi Shiiba, “but the biggest draw here is that the battles take on a shooter aspect. If you avoid enemy bullets and get close enough, you’ll automatically shoot back at them. It’s a really easy system to get to grips with.”

The game (pictured above) is releasing in March in Japan, but plans on branching out internationally to Asia, and then to the West.

Shiiba went on to note his confidence with Sega tackling the US marketplace due to their success with Kingdom Conquest.

Sega Networks director Haruki Satomi had this to add to Shiiba’s confidence,

“Back when GREE and Mobage’s feature-phone games were first hitting it big in Japan, people thought there’s no way they’d produce an international hit. However, once we fully entered the smartphone era and people worldwide got access to the same pool of titles, they started to become hits in the West as well. If we can produce a high-end title right now, when people are really starting to pay attention to Japanese smartphone games, I think we can get a lot of users to play it.”

Personally, I think Sega could really excel in the smartphone market if they play their cards right. What do you guys think?

[Source: Polygon]