The Ministry of Culture China has published the regulations for commercial game machines at arcades. According to the new regulations, all game machines have to be examined and approved before they are distributed into the market. The new regulations apply from May 1 2010, so it is estimated that there will be a machine replacement cycle at that time. For example, IGS is expected to be a beneficiary because it will cooperate with SEGA to launch new game machines meeting the demand of new regulations.

Many illegal amusement venues have recently emerged in Guilin City and caused a lot of social problems, which made the public dissatisfied and also raised strong concerns of the culture department.

In recent years, discussions on casino legalization in Japan have alternated between dynamic enthusiasm and stagnation.

After the House of Representatives election was held last year, a new administration was inaugurated and the industry was keen to discover what kind of attitude the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) as the center party held on the casino issue.

The Ministry of Culture of China has warned that, “as of April 30, 2010, all amusement and entertainment venues are not allowed to operate games and amusement machines that are not listed in the guiding directory of machine models for market access issued by culture administrative departments.” Understandably, this has caused the industry some concern.

Founded in 1992, Saint-Fun started off with the import of video game motherboards. Dedicated to developing sports leisure products, the company has successfully created the Street Basketball frenzy. For the period from the second half of 2009 to the first half of 2010, Saint-Fun is focused on expanding into ODM and OEM for international companies.

Since China passed the “Notice Regarding Further Strengthening the Administration of Amusement and Entertainment Venues”, the government of Shaanxi Province has established the “Amusement and entertainment Venue Administration Methods” based on the Notice and also prescribed the “Notice Regarding Related Issues about the Implementation of Fixed-direction Purchase and Supply on Amusement and Entertainment Venues’ Games and Amusement Facilities”.

The culture administrative departments of all levels in Qinghai Province cooperated with industry and commerce departments and public security departments to conduct a four-month collective culture market rectification movement focused on inspecting internet cafes, amusement and entertainment venues.  During the movement period, 14,314 law enforcement officers were mobilized to inspect 14,061 cultural entities.Twenty-five illegal operations were found and 31,862 websites and games were blocked.

During 2009, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province has actively supported and promoted the animation and online game industry’s development and enthusiastically explored new directions for the development and management of e-game venues. 

Scheduled to take place from May 2 to 4, 2010 in Taipei City, Taiwan, the VIP exhibitor registration for GTI Asia Taipei Expo 2010 kicked off on December 30, 2009.  So far GTI, the show organizer, has confirmed the registration of the first 10 VIP exhibitors with the total booking of 200 booths (1,800sqm). 

Founded in 1992, Saint-Fun started off with the import of video game motherboards. Dedicated to developing sports leisure products, the company successfully created the Street Basketball frenzy. For the period from the second half of 2009 to the first half of 2010, Saint-Fun is focused on expanding into ODM and OEM international companies. 

Subsino showed its newly developed air hockey table Kung Fun Ball at the recent IAAPA show.

The air hockey table features an innovative design and vivid sound effects and provides three modes: Practice, Single Player and Dual Player competition/ challenge modes. The game attracted many players and received enthusiastic feedback. 

On October 28, 2009, the “Chinese-Korean Game Talent Training Base” officially went into operation in Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, China.  Both Chinese and Korean parties announced and signed the “Agreement for Jointly Operating the Chinese-Korean Game Talent Training Base”. They will jointly operate the base and cultivate game talents through running online or offline courses.

The three events in London this month, namely IGE/ATEI at Earls Court and EAG Expo at Excel Exhibition Center, will mark the beginning of the new year 2010. 

The Annual Conference of Chinese e-Game Industry convened in Beijing early December. Submission for Golden Finger Awards applications commenced in September. To encourage and support more creative enterprises and start-up groups, the Golden Finger Awards has started paying more attention to the small and medium-sized enterprises and groups in the game industry since 2008. 

Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province will start constructing the first yacht club in the area around Beibu Gulf at the end of 2009. The project will cost close to RMB$400 million and is predicted to be completed in 2013. 

Organized by GTI Magazine, GTI Asia Taipei Expo 2010 will take place at B & C Zones, Hall 1, Taipei World Trade Center in Taipei, Taiwan on May 2~4, 2010.  The registration for overseas exhibitors has kicked off.  The first phase of booth selection and assignment process for close to 20 VIP companies will begin in mid December. 

Minister Mao Chi-kuo of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications went to Singapore to attend the APEC Ministerial Meeting. Considering the future planning and development of Taiwan’s gaming industry, Mao Chi-kuo listened to the briefing given by the casino regulatory authority in Singapore and casino operator Genting Group which runs Resorts World at Sentosa.

To further promote economic interactions between China and Taiwan, the Guangzhou Branch of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade organized a delegation to Taipei to attend the “Taipei-Guangzhou Trade Week 2009” from November 4 to 11. 

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea and the Korea Game Industry Agency officially published the Korea Game White Paper 2009. The White Paper reported that Korea's domestic game market reached $5,605.7 billion Korean won in 2008, posing a 9% growth compared with $5,143.6 billion won in 2007. Korea's game exports reached US$1,090 million in 2008, growing by 40.1% compared with US$780 million in 2007. Also, Korea's online game exports currently continue to enjoy dramatic growth.

GTI Asia Taipei Expo 2010 will take place on May 2~4, 2010, at B&C Zones, Hall 1, Taipei World Trade Center, Taipei, Taiwan. Currently, there are 600 booths available, and around 100 exhibitors from all over the world are estimated to come, including companies from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China.

After fighting for more than two decades to get Penghu County of Taiwan to open up casinos, Taiwan's first local casino referendum was finally held on September 26, 2009. A total of 17,350 votes against the proposition to allow the opening of casinos defeated the 13,397 votes supporting the opening of casinos by 3,000-plus votes.

GeneralTouch, one of the global leading touch solution providers, combines high-performance LCD panels with GeneralTouch's unique Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) touch technology to create a new family of large-screen, wide-aspect open-frame LCD touchmonitors.

The Culture Department of Shandong Province recently issued the "opinions on the practice of improving the administration of amusement and province-wide entertainment venues" to the Culture Bureaus of all its cities.

There is good news for FEC owners - three new games from Belrare, Super Hot Skiing, Speed Flyer and Happy Balance Ball (in one and two-player versions). The games feature the revolutionary balancing mechanism and provide a healthy FEC concept - which enriches the mind with games and the body with physical exercise.

To promote China's animation and comic industry, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation of China announced on July 31 new taxation policies for supporting the animation and comics industry's development. 

GTI Asia China Expo was successfully held on September 3-6, at Liuhua Exhibition Center, located on the intersection of the four main roads in Yuexiu, Guangzhou, which is the most prosperous area in the city.  As a part of Guangzhou Fair Organizing Committee's expo projects, it received great support from both the authorities and the industry, presenting an extraordinary debut.

Having confidence in the future of gaming business on Taiwan's offshore islands, the Hsiuping Institute of Technology in central Taiwan signed a contract with Ocean-Tech Group from Macau and inaugurated the "Global Gaming Training Center" on June 15th, 2009 to launch the first gaming extension education program in central Taiwan. 

Sony Japan announced on June 29th that it will establish a digital content cooperative R&D center in Taiwan and will cooperate with Taiwanese companies to develop 20 console games within three years. 

Minister Mao Chi-kuo of the Ministry of Transportation and Communication, has said the basic gaming law in Taiwan could be completed by the end of 2009 when preparations for investor recruitment could start. 

G2E Asia 2009 that was held at the Venetian Macao on June 3~4 showed signs of being affected by the global financial crisis. The show's scale dwindled; booth and visitor numbers decreased. Among nearly 150 exhibitors, there were 21 exhibitors coming from Taiwan, including Astro, Borden, Bingotimes, Jumbo, IGS, Subsino, Homer, Taiwan Fulgent, Huai I, New Sun Yu, Shang Yang, Jyuee Ang, Grantech, Advantech, King Cabinet, IBASE, Taiwan Yuanmei, Axiomtek, Paokai, and GTI Magazine. 

Shenzhen Huaqiang Holding Limited will establish a cultural and technological theme park in Johannesburg, South Africa with the investment of USD 250 million.

Although there are many gaming locations closing down in Tokyo, due to the financial crisis, there are some arcades that are finding no change in business - or even a slight increase.

Subsino's R&D ability has always been highly praised among the global industry; its game software, cabinets, parts, kiddie rides and the R&D and production of children's teaching machines are well received globally. Subsino has successfully built up its own brand in the world and become one of the leading manufacturers in Taiwan. It exhibited at GTI Asia Taipei Expo 2009 at booth B59, demonstrating Happy Land series of kiddie rides, CO-Dream interactive skill and redemption games - Panda Train and Skills. 

An indoor amusement hall that costs RMB 1 billion is going to be built in the Happy Valley in Beijing. Attractions like a Pirate Ship, Roller Coaster and Shipwreck Rapids will be presented in the indoor amusement hall in various sizes.

The Global Gaming Research Center (GGRC) which provides key techniques in operating the global gambling industry is the subsidiary of the Macao-based Ke Hai Group and is planning to extend its training project in to Taiwan. GGRC collaborates with Gaming Laboratories International (GLI) in the United States and is going to issue diplomas for single subjects to those in Taiwan who pass the special training certificate course of GGTC, in order to nurture the gambling talents in Taiwan. 

Some Taiwanese game companies recorded new highs in revenues in January and February this year. With new game releases in March, these developers have the chance to create new records again. IGS, Chinesegamer and Soft-World all had outstanding performance in the first quarter of 2009. IGS has started to ship new machines to Italy and China. With the closed beta test of Prophecy Online starting, IGS is expected to reach a new revenue high in the second quarter.

KN&U, which successfully distributed Korean dance games, has always had a close relationship with Korean firms. It has built co-operative relationships with several Korean game developers on diverse contents including game distribution and collaborative development.

Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), a Japanese governmental organization, published last month the 2008-2009 Content Market Status in the North America Market. The white paper announced a series of market statistics, which included that the output of Japanese comics and cartoon products reached US$2.829 billion (280 billion Japanese yen) in the market of North America for 2007.

Think Services, organizer of the world famous Game Developers Conference (GDC), have said the event will return to China this October. In March, the Ministry of Culture of China officially became the guiding unit of the GDC China 2009.

Saint-Fun, which will have a spacious booth spanning an area of 270 square meters at GTI Asia Taipei Expo 2009, specializes in developing intellectual, entertainment and non-electronic categories of game machines. Founded in 1992, Saint-Fun has achieved outstanding results in product sales, operating site planning and cooperative operations. The firm also has acquired ISO900 certification and successfully built a good reputation and wide sales networks in Taiwan, China and other countries like the US and Italy. The Saint-Fun brand is widely and profoundly recognized.

GTI Asia Taipei Expo, which will take place at Areas B & C, Hall 1 of the Taipei World Trade Center on May 7-9, has completed the first phase of booth assignment for VIP exhibitors.

IGS sells AWPs, music games, FEC games, simulators and PGM2.

When hit by waves of the financial crisis, cutting expenditure has become a major matter for all trade events. Recently, Korea's largest game trade event, G-Star, has also considered changing venue to cut costs.

Organized by Astro and the Economic Daily News, the first Taiwan Gaming Industry Forum took place at the Westin Taipei Hotel on February 13. The forum invited and was attended by governmental officials, civil representatives, scientific search organizations, academic institutions, legal representatives, and Taiwanese and overseas industry experts and associates. The forum served to build connections between Taiwan's gaming industry and international casinos.