Japanese Tech Stock Weekly Summary

The following is excerpted from IRG's weekly stock report:

Internet

•FreeBit Co., a network-related skills provider, announced that it has set a premarket price of 340,000 yen (US$300) a share for its IPO of 2,000 common shares at the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market. The price gives the IPO a total value of 680 million yen (US$5.7 million). The premarket price is based on the results of the company's book-building exercise.

Media, Entertainment and Gaming

• Sony (SNE) announced the launching of its own virtual universe and another 3-D game built almost entirely by players. Called Home, the virtual universe is a real-time, networked world for the PlayStation 3 in which players create human-looking characters called avatars. They can buy clothing, furniture and videos to play on a virtual flat-screen television in their virtual apartments. Industry observers see the concept as similar to Linden Lab’s Second Life, a Web-based phenomenon with nearly 4.5 million residents.

• Nintendo (NTDOY.PK) announced its second quarter lineup for the North American market, with the focus on Pokemon Battle Revolution, the first Wii game that will take advantage of the console's online capabilities. Aside from being the first online title, Pokemon Battle Revolution when released will mark the first game to feature Wii and DS connectivity. Through this feature, users not only have the option of importing saved characters from the upcoming Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl, but they can also use the DS as a makeshift controller. Pokemon Battle Revolution has already been available in the Japanese market since last December, but will be released for North American audiences on June 25th. Other upcoming Nintendo titles for the Wii include Super Paper Mario in April, Mario Party in May, and Big Brain Academy in June.

Hardware

• Hitachi (HIT) announced that it will sell business personal computers made by Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) under the Hitachi brand in Japan. The latest deal is seen as enhancing the longtime cooperative ties with the American PC and software company, which includes Hewlett-Packard providing Hitachi Ltd. with servers. Hitachi, which sells about 350,000 business personal computers a year, said the HP-made computers will replace those currently sold by Hitachi, called Flora, as well as the consumer line called Prius will continue with products manufactured by Hitachi.

• Sony Corp, Matsushita Electric Industrial (MC) and Lenovo Group (LNVGY) are among seven computer and electronics makers being sued by 3M on claims they infringed patents used for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. 3M, which makes products from Post-it Notes to road signs, filed the patent infringement lawsuit in the U.S. The suit also asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to block U.S. imports of the batteries or products such as notebook computers containing them. 3M is also seeking unspecified damages in the dispute over battery cathode materials, a market the firm estimates at US$700 million. The suit, which claimed the patented inventions made the batteries last longer and less likely to overheat, came after Sony said it would spend US$440 million to replace 9.6 million lithium-ion cells that were fire hazards, the biggest recall in consumer-electronics history. 3M and Batteries Com are also included in the suit, while Hitachi is part of the suit for batteries used in a cordless screwdriver. Matsushita and its Panasonic Corp unit were named for the "Revolithium" batteries in cordless power tools.

Disclaimer: IRG is not responsible for the accuracy of the news compiled within this article, which is based on publicly available information.