He hopes Gree can have positive impact on Japan as an example of a successful start-up.
Mind Candy announced plans last year to develop two Moshi mobile games in partnership with Gree.
The big Asian players such as RenRen, Tencent, DeNA, Gree and others are investing significantly in the US markets.
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Last month, Gree opened its platform so users in Japan can play with friends in the U.S. or Europe.
At E3 2012, Japanese mobile game developer GREE had a huge presence, as did the US-bound WeMade Entertainment.
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Pinot Gris (pronounced "gree") is the black sheep, or anyway, the purple-brown sheep, of one of the grape world's most noble families.
Gree is creating a wholly-owned subsidiary, Gree International, which is acquiring OpenFeint.
Gree plans to launch its first game in the U.S. this summer.
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The OpenFeint acquisition is part of a larger global move by Gree.
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Then in April Gree announced a similar deal with Mig33, a gaming company popular in Southeast Asia to make their games inter-operable.
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In mid-January 2013, its total users has surpassed 300 million worldwide. (Other than WeChat, apps like KakaoTalk, LINE, and GREE Messenger are also thriving).
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Last summer Gree recorded 35 billion page views from mobile phones compared with only 400 million from PCs (Japanese SNS subscribers at over 25 million).
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With Gree you can have simultaneous games going on with friends.
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Gree and DeNA argue they can provide marketing and distribution support to help a game stand out among the hundreds of thousands of other games.
Our approach is to focus on products not marketing (like Gree).
The collectible card battling game was a resounding success for both Konami ( NYSE: KNM) and mobile social platform GREE, snagging 6.5 million players in Japan.
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"People say there is no culture of growing a business from scratch in Japan but actually social games and our company Gree became successful within seven years, " he says.
The Gree games will be aimed at showcasing the OpenFeint platform which enables developers to add social features like leaderboards and the ability to see which games their friends are playing.
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They also prefer local networks to global ones: Facebook has stagnated in Japan, while gaming and blogging services provided by the likes of DeNa, GREE and Mixi continue to dominate.
Founded Japan's second-biggest social networking site, Gree, in 2004.
In early May, stocks of Gree and DeNA fell more than 20% after the nation's Consumer Affairs Agency said it was considering whether a sales method called "complete gacha" violates the law.
After Japanese social gaming giant GREE bought OpenFeint in April 2011 -- primarily to stifle competition with its own, similar service -- the service continued until it was closed this past December.
"Not every game that succeeds in Japan will succeed in the U.S., but there will be some that work if we do the localization well, " said Naoki Aoyagi, chief executive of Gree International, a San Francisco-based subsidiary.
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