MMO Firm NCSoft Opens Japanese Office

Major South Korean-headquartered MMO firm NCsoft (Lineage, Guild Wars, City Of Heroes) has announced the establishment of NCsoft Japan KK, a wholly owned and operated subsidiary to help the firm continue its penetration of the Japanese market. NCsoft Japan's operations will include development and localizations of their games serviced via PlayNC, NCsoft's games service platform. Servicing and marketing activities of all NCsoft's games will be accomplished by NC Japan KK, a joint venture with the increasingly MMO-invested Japanese tech giant Softbank Japan. The company also mentioned that the subsidiary will be acting as a development studio in the future, as well as a localizer and publisher, allowing the company to develop locally appropriate online casual games and MMO games for Japanese and Asian gamers. Chris Chung, the Vice President of IBU (International Business Unit) at NCsoft commented: "By joining the industry acknowledged game experts of Japan with know-how of global online game publisher, NCsoft, we expect greater synergy effects in near future". NCsoft penetrated into Japanese market in 2001 by establishing a joint venture, and is now operating both Lineage and Lineage II. Guild Wars is lined up for a commercialized service starting from January 27th. During the third quarter of 2005, NCsoft reached a figure of 7.6 billion Korean Won ($7.7 million) in revenue with 3.7 billion ($3.8 million) in operating profit in Japan due to the consistent demands generated from Lineage and Lineage II, and the Japanese market contributes 20% of NCsoft's entire overseas sales. The firm currently also operates subsidiary offices in US and Europe, and joint ventures in Japan, China, Taiwan, and Thailand.