lackoo1111: have you read it ?
I have now. He's right although he omits the fact that there are just as many people playing DSes and PSPs as there are those playing on phones (at least for commutes). And a lot of the top selling DS games are certainly causal and meta-gaming in style. The current top one is sommat to do with those Mii avatars -- a game which won't release in the West until they can figure out how to handle speech apparently.
As Gree, etc., they've come under fire recently for not clearly advertising that their "free" games actually carry micro-transaction charges. Sure, the games start off free (for perhaps the first 5 levels or so) but then, you'll have to purchase upgrades which are being charged for in yen, despite the player being given the impression that they are simply spending in-game currency that is not costing them real world currency. People have racked up bills equivalent to several thousand dollars as a result, simply by playing one game.
It's also sad to think that those mobile games are getting more air time now than for PC based games (the last time I say an advert for a PC game was last year for CSS online) and before that it'd be adverts for "free-to-play" (Korean) MMOs.
It'd be nice if the casual portals would attempt to advertise the existence of PC casual games -- a lot of people have PCs now for the internet, so there's a good market for them if people are made aware of them. And both Big Fish and Pop Cap already have Japanese portals along with at least one local portal (although I can't remember its name).
