Waffle announced Sin Magical Girl Ai for a 2027 release, reviving the adult bishoujo game series after a 19-year gap since the last installment. Scenario writer Hiroki Kuroi is expected to return.
Waffle announced on July 1, 2026, that it will release Sin Magical Girl Ai in 2027, reviving the adult bishoujo game series that began with Magical Girl Ai in 2001. The series, known for its dark themes and transformed heroine defeat subgenre, went inactive after 2008's Magical Girl Ai San. The announcement marks the first new entry in the series after a 19-year gap.
Scenario writer Hiroki Kuroi is expected to return for the new title. No other staff, platform, or release date details have been disclosed. The announcement positions Sin Magical Girl Ai as a revival of a series that helped define its subgenre within bishoujo games.
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ASOBISYSTEM and ORIGINAL announced a capital and business alliance on August 4, 2026, to build a joint foundation for growing Japanese culture, art, tourism, and food culture into sustainable international businesses. ASOBISYSTEM will invest in ORIGINAL and become a strategic shareholder. The partnership starts with English-speaking markets and includes considering new investment mechanisms.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Walpurgisnacht: Rising will collaborate with ROUND1 starting August 28, 2026, the film's release date. The campaign runs through November 29 across ROUND1 locations, offering themed menu items, collaboration rooms, bowling score displays, original goods, capsule toys, and social media giveaways.
M Data and Domo Japan have begun offering a connector that links M Data's TV metadata with the Domo data platform. The connector lets companies pull broadcast trends, TV-CM airing data, and product or store information mentioned on programs directly into Domo, where it can be combined with existing corporate data for analysis, visualization, AI use, and business actions.
At BIC 2026, Wonder Potion's Seunghyun Yu and Sinkhole Studio's Jungkyu Kwon discussed what turns a game into an IP. Yu defined IP as content that can expand in any direction without feeling off, listing four traits. He also explained why Wonder Potion is making a new game before SANABI 2: to build team strength after SANABI's linear design fell short of his metroidvania ambitions.
GoPro reported a second-quarter loss of $51 million on August 10, 2026, with camera shipments down 38% year-over-year and revenue falling 31% to $105 million. CEO Nicholas Woodman said the board-approved sale process has entered its final stages, though no buyer, price, or structure has been disclosed.
Frogwares released a new overview trailer for The Sinking City 2, a Lovecraftian survival horror game set in 1920s Arkham. The trailer introduces protagonist Calvin Rafferty and his quest to save his lover Fay from a mysterious sleep, and confirms the voice cast, including Game of Thrones actress Gemma Elizabeth Whelan.
Comture and Krugle signed a business alliance to use the Krugle AI platform for legacy system maintenance and development. The partnership will launch a companion-style support service and co-develop industry-specific assets, including manufacturing tacit knowledge and educational content, with a possible capital tie-up under consideration.
KADOKAWA released Q1 FY2027 results on August 13. Net sales rose 5.3% year-on-year while operating profit fell 45.5%. The game segment declined against last year, when ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN contributed significantly. Publishing and IP creation grew on titles like Super Kaguya-hime!. FromSoftware has ELDEN RING Tarnished Edition and The Duskbloods scheduled from Q2 onward.
Bluepass Capital Inc. announced that a fund it services has invested in CyXen Inc., the operator of the nursing care, medical, and welfare recruitment agency service medica. CyXen spun off from For A-career Inc. in April 2025 and reports adoption results at several thousand facilities. Bluepass plans hands-on support for growth.
Rakuten Mobile issued a short release on August 12 stating it is still in final negotiations with KDDI over a roaming contract. The company said roaming will continue after October in areas where its own network coverage takes time, while scaling back where coverage is sufficient. KDDI had said the current contract ends September 2026.
Tokyo Shoko Research reported that game developer Odd Number and two related companies filed for bankruptcy in the Tokyo District Court on August 5. Odd Number had 10,320,780,000 yen in liabilities as of December 2024. The company is best known for developing Link! Like! Love Live!, which ended service on June 30.
Nexon announced a special dividend of about 324 billion yen, or 415 yen per share, pending board approval in September 2026. The payout follows second-quarter results that beat forecasts, with MapleStory franchise revenue up 63% year-on-year and ARC Raiders cumulative sales passing 16.3 million units.
Netflix is closing two of its in-house game studios, Night School Studio and Moonloot Games, according to a report from Game File that the company's spokesperson confirmed. Night School Studio, known for the adventure game Oxenfree, was acquired by Netflix in 2021. Moonloot Games, based in Helsinki, was founded in 2022 as an internal studio. The closures come shortly after Night School released the horror game Unhinged in July, which Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters praised in an investor call as having strong numbers. Netflix told Game File that it is prioritizing games with broad appeal, such as children's games, party games, story-driven titles, and sports games like FIFA World Cup Launch Edition. A spokesperson said the company is making organizational changes to focus its operations and thanked departing staff. These closures follow a pattern of contraction in Netflix's game division, including the shutdown of Team Blue in October 2024, Boss Fight in October 2025, and the spin-off of Spry Fox in December 2025. After these moves, Netflix's game unit will consist of a central team working with external developers and Next Games, which focuses on party games.
Amazon Game Studios announced on August 12 that it will step back from publishing the Korean MMORPG Lost Ark in Western regions, with developer Smilegate taking over operations in early 2027. The transition is part of a broader retreat by Amazon Game Studios from MMO operations, which also includes handing over Throne and Liberty to NC and FirstSpark Games in the fourth quarter of 2026. Lost Ark, developed by Smilegate and operated in the West by Amazon Game Studios, will see most player data carried over, though in-game mail, chat messages, and some other elements will not transfer. Players will link their Steam accounts to Smilegate's system during the transition, and those who do not want their data moved can opt out through a dedicated page before the transfer date. Amazon Game Studios described the move as returning the game to its developers, while Smilegate framed it as a chance to reconsider the game's future direction, aiming to respond faster to player feedback and gradually close the content update gap with the Korean version. The Japanese service for Lost Ark ended in March 2024, and the Steam store page remains restricted there, though the developer's overseas operation could open the door to a revival.
Nintendo announced a new capsule toy line, "Fruit Keychain Collection Animal Crossing," for the Animal Crossing series. The keychains will be sold at the official directly managed stores Nintendo TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, and FUKUOKA starting in September. The product features keychains of fruits that appear in the Animal Crossing series. The product image also shows keychains of a "Bell Bag" and a "Beehive," with the beehive appearing to come with a "Medicine" attachment. Before the general release, advance sales are planned starting August 14 at two locations: the "Animal Crossing: Hokkaido Airpo Island Pop-Up Event in New Chitose Airport" and the Nintendo POP-UP STORE in SAPPORO "Animal Crossing: Daimaru Depa Island." Nintendo made the announcement on August 13 via its official store account on social media, which included a product image showing the keychain designs. The capsule toy format means customers receive a random fruit keychain from the collection.
The television anime adaptation of the manga Tenkaichi: The Greatest Warrior Under the Rising Sun has revealed its first teaser promotional video, a teaser visual, main cast, staff, and an April 2027 debut. The announcement came on Thursday through the anime's official website and social media channels. The series is produced by studio Fugaku, with Masashi Abe directing. Kazuharu Sato handles series scripts, Ryoji Nakamori designs the characters, and Hayato Matsuo composes the music. The main voice cast includes Gen Sato as Miyamoto Musashi, Kenichiro Matsuda as Honda Tadakatsu, and Kenyu Horiuchi as Oda Nobunaga. The manga, written by Yosuke Nakamaru and illustrated by Kyotaro Azuma, launched in Kodansha's Young Magazine the 3rd in January 2021, then moved to Monthly Young Magazine in May 2021 after the former ceased publication. Kodansha's K MANGA service publishes the manga in English simultaneously. The story is set in 1600, ten years after Oda Nobunaga unified Japan, and follows his announcement that he will pass power to whoever brings him the strongest warrior. The first match pits Honda Tadakatsu against Miyamoto Musashi.
Oricon Inc. released its Monthly Comic Ranking for July 2026 on August 6, tracking estimated print sales at retail outlets across Japan from June 29 to August 2. The 115th volume of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece manga ranked first with 1,020,422 copies sold. The volume shipped in Japan on July 3. The One Piece manga has surpassed 600 million copies published worldwide as of the release of the 114th volume on March 4. The One Piece anime's Elbaf arc debuted in Japan on April 5, with Crunchyroll streaming the arc and planning to stream the English dub this fall. Yoshihiro Togashi's Hunter X Hunter volume 39 ranked second with 661,825 copies, marking its first volume in 22 months. The manga resumed serialization on June 29. Nekokurage's manga adaptation of Hyuganatsu's The Apothecary Diaries light novels ranked third with 254,908 copies. The top 20 list includes other notable titles such as Hiromu Arakawa's Daemons of the Shadow Realm at fourth and ONE and Yusuke Murata's One-Punch Man at fifth. The ranking reflects strong sales for long-running series and new releases alike.
Sony Semiconductor Solutions and TSMC signed a definitive agreement to establish Advanced Vision Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in Koshi City, Kumamoto Prefecture. Sony will be the sole controlling shareholder and contribute about 465 billion yen in assets, while TSMC contributes roughly 282 billion yen in cash. Mass production of smartphone image sensors is scheduled to begin in 2029.
AI startup Manus, whose acquisition by Meta was announced in December 2025, says it will soon return to operating as an independent company. The deal was reportedly withdrawn after China's National Development and Reform Commission decided to prohibit foreign investment in Manus. User data generated after December 29, 2025 will be deleted between August 23 and 24, 2026.
Cygames has signed a sponsorship agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers and will title-sponsor the official game "2025 World Series Ohtani Ring Presented by Cygames" at Dodger Stadium on September 2, 2026, local time. The game is against the St. Louis Cardinals, with a scheduled start of 7:10 p.m. local time. As a visitor benefit, Cygames will distribute a Shohei Ohtani model 2025 World Series championship ring, commemorating the Dodgers' back-to-back World Series titles in 2024 and 2025. This is Cygames' first partnership with MLB, though the company has previously sponsored sports events such as the French G1 horse race Prix de Paris. On game day, Cygames' name and logo will appear on the stadium's vision screens, signage, official website, social media, and distributed materials. A booth where attendees can experience Cygames content will also be set up in the stadium's outer perimeter area. Details such as whether Ohtani will play in the game, the ring distribution method, and the number of rings have not been announced.
Uber has sold all of its shares in Serve Robotics, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The sale, which had been underway for at least a year, came as a surprise to Serve Robotics, which learned of the full divestment only after the official announcement. Uber had previously partnered with Serve Robotics to deploy up to 2,000 delivery robots across the U.S.
AMNIBUS, the official collaboration goods shopping site operated by arma bianca, is sponsoring Nijisanji Koshien 2026, the VTuber group's annual summer baseball tournament. The event runs August 8, 9, and 11, with ten manager livers training Nijisanji and NIJISANJI EN livers over three in-game years in Powerful Pro Baseball 2026-2027.
Saviynt announced its annual recurring revenue has passed $300 million, with new customer acquisition up over 80% and a 96% customer retention rate. The company also launched Zuma, an AI identity security platform designed to manage AI agents, large language models, and non-human identities across enterprise environments.
SK Hynix announced plans to invest 54 trillion won (about 6 trillion yen) to build new memory chip factories in South Korea. The company will spend 35.2 trillion won on the Y2 DRAM fab in Yongin and 19.1 trillion won on the M17 NAND fab in Cheongju, with construction starting in 2027.
Square Enix reported first-quarter results for the fiscal year ending March 2027, with net sales up 32.3% to 78.4 billion yen and operating income up 88.6% to 17 billion yen. HD game sales nearly doubled to 17.7 billion yen, and total game software units rose from 4.01 million to 7.38 million, with downloads accounting for about 90%.
KLab reported second-quarter net sales of 3.263 billion yen, up 91.3% quarter-on-quarter, and operating income of 493 million yen, reversing a first-quarter operating loss of 453 million yen. The launch of Dragon Quest Smash Grow, developed by KLab and published by Square Enix, drove the recovery. The first half still posted a net loss of 125 million yen.
Epic Games announced on August 11 that it is selling ArtStation and Sketchfab to KitBash, the company behind KitBash3D and Greyscalegorilla. Epic will focus on Unreal Engine 6, Fortnite, the developer ecosystem, and the Epic Games Store. Users keep access and IP rights.
Nippon Television Holdings reported a 36.6% year-on-year decline in operating profit for the April-June quarter, coming in at 11.075 billion yen. While FIFA World Cup 2026 time-slot sales grew 11.2%, spot advertising revenue fell 12.2% and program production costs weighed on results. Net profit rose 53.2% on securities sale gains.
AMD announced on August 6, 2026, a definitive agreement to acquire Taalas, a Canadian startup that embeds AI model weights directly into semiconductors. Taalas converts AI models into dedicated silicon called 'Hardcore Models,' reducing memory transfers to accelerate inference while cutting power and hardware costs. AMD plans to integrate the technology into its accelerator roadmap.
Anthropic is hiring engineers to build a team that will co-design custom AI chips with its models, aiming to reduce reliance on external partners for AI compute. The company has sourced resources from AWS, Google, Nvidia, and AMD, but surging demand for Claude has pushed it toward in-house silicon development.
Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind who worked on Gemini, has left Google to launch Discovery Loop, an AI-focused public benefit corporation. Three colleagues join him: Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals, and Quoc Le. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Google will support the venture as an initial investor and cloud partner.
Square Enix Holdings reported its consolidated results for the first quarter of fiscal year ending March 2027 on August 10, 2026, covering April 1 to June 30. The company recorded net sales of 78.423 billion yen, up 32.3 percent year on year, operating income of 17.008 billion yen, up 88.6 percent, and ordinary income of 18.766 billion yen, up 172.4 percent. This marks the first quarter with year-on-year revenue and profit growth since the third quarter of fiscal year ending March 2022, roughly four and a half years ago. The Digital Entertainment segment drove the gains, with sales up 51.8 percent to 49.96 billion yen and operating income up 91.8 percent to 15.583 billion yen. Within that segment, HD games saw sales rise by 8.8 billion yen to 17.7 billion yen and operating income increase by 5.1 billion yen to 6.1 billion yen. The company attributed the performance to new titles such as Final Fantasy VII Rebirth for Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and Microsoft Store, and Adventure Elliot's Millennial Story, along with strong catalog sales. MMO revenue and profit also grew, though profit rose only slightly by about 30 million yen due to costs for the upcoming expansion 8.0, Silver Wanderer, set for early 2027. Smart device and PC browser segments also improved, supported by Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest Smash Glow. Full-year forecasts remained unchanged.
Take-Two Interactive reported that Grand Theft Auto V has sold over 230 million copies worldwide across three console generations. The company's fiscal Q1 2027 net bookings reached about $1.39 billion, exceeding its forecast. GTA Online added a mission creator tool, and the full GTA series has sold about 475 million copies.
The official website for the With Vengeance, Sincerely, Your Broken Saintess anime began streaming the second season's second teaser promotional video on Monday. The video confirms the returning cast from the first season, including Asami Seto as Rua. The season premieres on October 1 on TV Kanagawa, with Saya Fukase directing at IMAGICA Infos / Imageworks Studio.
Kotoba Technologies announced that its speech foundation model Koto has been adopted for Japanese support in Salesforce's Agentforce Voice. The feature, which enables AI agents to handle phone calls, begins availability in Japan on August 7. Koto handles speech recognition, synthesis, and speech-to-speech translation for East Asian languages.
PC brand GALLERIA, operated by Thirdwave, announced a sponsorship agreement with VTuber group Aogiri High School on August 10, 2026. The deal includes equipment support for the group's 13 members, who have been active since 2018. Aogiri High School is run by viviON.
Minerva Growth Partners made a follow-on investment in X Mile's Series C round, about two and a half years after leading its Series B. X Mile's introduced business sites grew from 10,000 to over 30,000, and its job seeker database exceeded 1.2 million. DX/AI platform ARR grew over 90% year-on-year.
Kyoto Sangyo University venture SOI has launched a new service, the One-Business AI Trial, which helps small and medium enterprises test AI use in a single business process over three to four weeks. The company is recruiting ten monitor companies for the service, which stems from its experience training over 1,000 people in AI.
A writer for CloseBox and TechnoEdge documented building a personal DiffSinger vocal synthesis model, recording about an hour of his own singing over two days, then training it on an NVIDIA DGX Spark. The goal is to convert his recordings with an RVC voice changer to recreate his late wife's voice for new songs.
Game Spark's English immersion column examines the sea shanties in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Re: Sync, which includes more than 30 songs. The piece explains the genre's history, work-song functions, and meanings behind lyrics, from the New Zealand-origin "Wellerman" to the real-event-based "The Coast of High Barbary."
Plan Dirty Games launched Dirty Business on Steam Early Access on July 22, 2026. The play report follows the loop from cannabis cultivation in an underground hangar to weapon manufacturing, evidence disposal and currency counterfeiting, with reputation ranks unlocking new work. Employees semi-automate production, and the game supports solo and four-player co-op. The current build's tutorials start at zero cost, though employees cannot handle trash or shipping.
Game Spark interviewed Applesinmypants, developer of the sci-fi decoding adventure The Message from Deep Space, released for PC and Mac on June 30. The game has players translate alien messages from a meteor using math and science, with inspiration from the Golden Record. The game does not support Japanese and costs 1,200 yen.
Reddit reported Q2 2026 revenue of $805 million, up 61 percent year over year, and net income of $253 million, up 183 percent. Despite the strong results, shares fell more than 10 percent in after-hours trading. CEO Steve Huffman cited unstable search referral numbers, and analysts pressed on AI's impact on user growth.
A developer building a personal vocal synthesizer reports progress on SoulX-Singer, a zero-shot singing synthesis tool that can sing from tens of seconds of vocal data. The project aims to let a composition algorithm generate MIDI and lyrics that directly drive a singing voice model, bypassing Suno and RVC.
GENDA Inc. and SBI Holdings Inc. have agreed to a capital and business alliance. GENDA will invest 300 million yen in the SBI Neo Content Fund, while SBI plans to acquire up to 1.00% of GENDA shares through market purchases. The companies will also discuss joint promotional measures combining SBI's content with GENDA's entertainment platforms.
KADOKAWA opened pre-registration for the new KonoSuba game Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! Kono Aisubeki Machi ni Hanei wo! (MachiSuba), an original-story smartphone and PC RPG. The publisher released a teaser PV and key visual, and launched an X campaign giving away signed canvas art from the anime cast.
Warner Bros. Discovery filed a lawsuit against Amazon on July 21, accusing Amazon MGM Studios of illegally poaching executives, including HBO Max marketing VP Pia Barlow, who had a contract through October 2027. The suit alleges Amazon interfered with contracts and engaged in unfair competition.
Game Spark's July 25 Steam global sales ranking shows Granblue Fantasy: Relink climbing back into the top 10 after its Endless Ragnarok expansion, while Assassin's Creed Black Flag RE: Sync holds second place in its second week. The list also highlights rising titles like Dinoblade and Tears of Metal.
Argosha is releasing prop gun replicas of Alucard's Jackal and 454Casull from Hellsing, available for preorder on Amazon Japan. Both are ABS plastic, painted, and designed for cosplay rather than airsoft. A two-gun set in an MDF case is also offered.
TriOrb Co., Ltd. raised an additional 300 million yen in a Series B second close through a third-party allotment of shares and loans. The underwriters are the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Toyota Tsusho Corporation, with a loan from Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Total cumulative funding now stands at 4.53 billion yen.