Japan's DeNA Buys iPhone Dev Ngmoco

by Matthew Kato on Oct 12, 2010 at 05:25 AM

Japanese social gaming platform DeNA has bought iPhone gaming developer Ngmoco for a cool $40 million – one of the largest deals for an iPhone game developer.

"The big tide in social gaming is coming right now," DeNA founder Tomoko Namba told The New York Times. "We'd like to capture it and quickly become the world's number 1 mobile gaming platform."

DeNA is trying to get more of a foothold in the West, and take a shot at social spaces like Facebook and its games such as Farmville. Mobile gaming is also on DeNA's radar. Although Ngmoco is an iPhone developer (founded by ex-EA executive Neil Young), DeNA also wants to be a presence on Android-based phones through its Plus+ social networking platform.

Last week, DeNA announced that it was creating a Shenmue social world called Shenmue Town.