Another mobile company is getting into the virtual reality game.
Colopl NI, the U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese mobile developer that has a revenue of $700 million a year, announced today that it plans to move into the developing virtual reality field. To do so, it's promoted previous chief operating officer Jikhan Jung to chief executive officer. Investment bank Goldman Sachs predicts that the virtual and augment reality markets will grow into a $110 billion business by 2020. Colopl didn’t specify what platforms it plans to develop for, however, the leading two in mobile right now are the Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard. Other notable mobile developers, like Angry Birds maker Rovio and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood creator Glu, also plan to move into the VR space.
Above: Colopl NI CEO Jikhan Jung.
Image Credit: Colopl
“Colopl Group believes that virtual reality will be a totally new platform that changes our daily life, as the Internet changed our life 20 years ago,” Jung said in a press release sent to GamesBeat. “We will strive to develop VR games which provide the best VR experience so players don’t want to come back to the real life. We plan to develop outstanding VR games and I'm excited to ramp up our Colopl NI team to succeed in the new VR reality.”
Colopl NI opened the previous year and has primarily worked on bringing the Japanese mobile game Rune Story to the U.S. market. It was the No. 15 ranked game in the U.S. Apple on October 29, 2015, according to App Annie. It is currently the No. 25 game in Japan’s Apple store and was previously No. 1, according to App Annie.
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