San Francisco, CA & Tokyo, Japan – Zynga and SOFTBANK today announced a joint venture that will develop and distribute social games across Japan. The new joint venture, Zynga Japan, brings together leaders in social games and consumer technology to offer millions of new users the ability to play social games anytime and anywhere. In conjunction with today’s announcement, SOFTBANK has completed a $150 million investment in Zynga. With this agreement, Zynga and SOFTBANK will tighten their relationship as business partners.
The joint venture extends Zynga’s reach to a wider global audience and marks the company’s first foray into the rapidly growing internet and mobile market in Japan. Based in Tokyo, Zynga Japan will tap into Japan’s rich history of gaming and leverage SOFTBANK’s cutting edge mobile and Web technology to produce the best social games in the market.
“Zynga is a leader in social games and I am delighted to partner with them to introduce their social games to Japan,” said Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SOFTBANK. “We share the same vision as Zynga in social games and look forward to working together to create a social game powerhouse.”
“We’re excited to partner with SOFTBANK to bring Zynga’s social games to Japan and gain insights from the Japanese market,” said Mark Pincus, CEO and Founder of Zynga. “As one of the most innovative technology companies in the world, SOFTBANK is bringing the mobile internet to consumers making the social web more accessible to people everywhere.”
About Zynga
Zynga has over 230 million monthly active users playing its games. These games include: FarmVille, Treasure Isle, Mafia Wars, Zynga Poker, Café World, FishVille, PetVille, and YoVille. Zynga games are available on Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, and the iPhone. Through zynga.org, Zynga players have raised over $3 million for world social causes. Zynga is headquartered in Potrero Hill in San Francisco.
About SOFTBANK
SOFTBANK is a leading technology company connecting consumers through its broadband infrastructure, fixed-line telecommunications, and mobile communications services. SOFTBANK has invested in overseas companies with high potential to provide next generation services using the internet, including Oak Pacific Interactive (which operates China’s largest SNS site,)and Ustream, Inc.(which is the operator of the Ustream.TV website, a broadcast platform offering live video distribution service via the Internet (video streaming service). By leveraging this investment in Zynga and through its other efforts, SOFTBANK continuously aims to generate synergies among various content and services within its group. For more information, visit http://www.softbank.co.jp/en/
Source: Zynga Press Room
