▲ DINGO’s website hasn’t been updated since late 2016 and is now unaccessible.
DINGO Inc., a game developer, has just announced that its business was suspended and went bankrupt due to poor management. The company has actually closed down officially earlier on 21st March, 2017 after 19 years of business.
The company is currently owing about 100 creditors approximately 340 million yen and in a situation of hindering payment to business partners. According to market research intelligence TEIKOKU DATABANK, the console market is shrinking and hence DINGO’s sales do not perform as well as expected.
During DINGO’s early years, the developer produced a few titles on Mobage, Wii, NDS and Xbox360. The major game that made it known to gamers worldwide should be Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, but shortly after the release of this favourable Wii title they started working on three consecutive titles for Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA on PSP.
The successful Hatsune Miku experience had encouraged the developer to produce more games on handheld consoles. In fact, DINGO has only produced PSP, PSV and mobile games after finishing Hatsune Miku in 2011. It had another peak in 2014 when it released Love Live! School Idol Paradise on PSV. Despite having sold over 80,000 copies in just one week, it was probably due to the fact that Love Live! was already a hot franchise globally. As for mobile games, DINGO has only released three in total. The most recent release should be Ragnastrike Angels, which is far from well-received as it gets a rating of 1.7 on Google Play and 2.8 on QooApp.
DINGO’s business went downhill after its transition to focus on handheld consoles. Its bankruptcy may act as a warning to most game developers, publishers and console developers out there, that maybe, just maybe, it is time to weed out handheld game consoles.
UPDATE: It is said that DINGO’s games will still be run by other companies like Kadokawa.
