The company had previously made feature phone games long before smartphones took off and is now coming back.
Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) had been involved in mobile gaming for quite some time, having had a great deal of luck back when feature phones were the big thing in Japan – the step in technology between the old flip-phones and the current smartphone – but their popularity rapidly fizzled out as mobile tech changed and brought a tidal wave of game developers into the mix.
The company has now announced their return into smartphone games, with a specific goal in mind.
NIS will now be stepping back into providing mobile gaming products, but will be doing so for PlayStation TV and Vita. It will be recreating some of its most popular games so that consumers will be able to play them over these channels. The time of the feature phone trend in Japan wasn’t very long, but when it happened, many consumers owned these devices and NIS saw a tremendous market in mobile games, as the competition in that market wasn’t nearly as large as is currently the case for smartphones.
The company now sees an opportunity to take advantage of mobile gaming nostalgia from its most popular titles.
Though the feature phone wasn’t nearly as technologically advanced as a smartphone, it did offer a number of interesting and unique advancements over what had been available to old cell phone and flip phone owning consumers. Mobile games were certainly among the most beloved features on those devices.
One of the most popular games that NIS had put out for those mobile devices was called “Duologue”. That will now be among the titles that will be released in Japan for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV as a part of its “App Archives” service. That service is being launched within that country and Duologue will be the first title released under its brand. It is expected to cost 556 yen.
This mobile gaming experience was first launched in 2006, and the new launch will allow gamers to be able to return to the adventures of its protagonist, Alius, on the continent of La Zik, with more than 1,000 different objectives to be reached.
Sony has been making some teasing remarks about this technology for its popular console.
The PlayStation Japan blog has just released an update that includes a number of videos that have revealed several different augmented reality experiments that the electronics giant has been conducting with its PlayStation 4 console and its camera device peripheral product.
The experiments include a number of different types of purposes for the AR technology.
For example, among the augmented reality experiments was one for fluid simulation, which was demonstrated in the video. It worked when the user held up a white card, which appeared on the display as a virtual cube that held water. That digital water could then be poured into a second container, which was also only virtually created. This illustrates a number of different challenging concepts that hold a considerable amount of potential to the console and mobile gaming worlds.
The videos went on to demonstrate the way that augmented reality can be used for a realistic experience.
For example, one of the videos showed AR dynamic lighting that was demonstrated through the PlayStation 4. In this video, the user had a light source in real life, which appeared to illuminate a dinosaur that was appearing virtually. This technology was not just for light, but also a range of different colors.
The PlayStation Japan also went on to discuss the “trading card recognition” work that Sony has been pursuing. This AR recognition tech demonstration uses AR in order to be able to recognize a trading card’s pattern in high speed and to then be able to display the character and play music related to that character, nearly immediately. That specific function was not demonstrated within the videos in the blog post.
The blog also underscored different two augmented reality demos that used the PlayStation Vita. The first was a demonstration of a diorama of the Narita Airport. It used an actual flight schedule from that airport and gave users the chance to see virtual planes that were taking off and landing as viewed through the PS Vita when aimed at the diorama. The second demo involved the so-called “VitaHoloPoP”, which is a “Super Cyber transmission box” that would use the PS Vita to project virtual images of various character figurines in a hologram-like way, into a display case in real life.
