YouTube has officially released gaming apps in Japan. It is not surprising because the top 6 of 10 favorites YouTube channels are in gaming category. Japan is also included in 10 countries in the world with the most amount of time for watching YouTube videos. From 2013 until 2014, the total time for watching videos even increased up to 60%.
After England and United States, Japan becomes one of the countries that has gaming video and live-streaming application in local language. Ryan Watt, The Head of Gaming Division on YouTube Global, said that they will work together with several celebrities from YouTube Japan. Some of them are Hikakin, Max Murai, and Hajime.
Hikakin has 4 channels with total 5.9 million subscribers. Before that, Hikakin had already made a review about Chariso DX mobile game and successfully made it into a best-seller game in App Store.
Max Murai reached 500 million views per year after signing up his YouTube account. He also already released an autobiography and a song with Sony Music. Murai is now raising funds to make a movie.
Hajime, who is known by his video “Let’s Play”, has already launched his own mobile game. This game tops the list of casual gaming category in Google Play and also in App Store.
YouTube Gaming which announced on June looks obviously created to compete Twitch. Twitch which was recently acquired by Amazon is the biggest live-streaming website about gaming and available in 28 languages.