If you want to pull up some quick information about your World of Warcraft character (or anyone else's for that matter), why don't you try browsing for it on your iPhone. I'm not talking about the WoW Armory. There's a quicker way for you to do that - on the new and updated version of the Warcraft Characters app for the iPhone.

An official press release said Pearl Research's 77-page study on the "Online Games Market in Taiwan" has found that the growing local MMO and casual games market will most likely exceed $300 million this year. Given that the market worth is about a third of Blizzard's World of Warcraft revenue, that's a huge space to be filled by U.S. companies. Unfortunately for them, it's not easy as cake.

U.S. companies such as Blizzard Entertainment already established a foothold in the local market, although the Taiwanese (as Asians) are more inclined to play free-to-play MMOs than pay-to-play MMOs. The majority of the market actually spend more on free-to-play, microtransaction games than on subscription-based MMOs, said the study.

Also, the study has highlighted that the nation has its own game development industry and a "robust development community" who are also working on delivering games on the online platform. Some analysts believe that U.S. companies could enter the market with the right partner and right content, but they would also need the right price, too.

Much of the boom in the online scene is attributed to low cost game content (around US$ 12 to US$ 15) that caters to their cultural way of living, as well as popular trends. Coupled with a 67% increase of Internet subscriptions to broadband connections, the MMORPG market became the largest segment of the US$ 300 million market.

Casual games have also increased in popularity in Taiwan, garnering a 35% share of the MMO-casual games market, with the remaining 65% for the MMO titles. The study was a trend analysis of data compiled since 2006 to identify the growth and direction of the local Taiwan market in MMO and casual games.

In an exclusive interview with Sony Online Entertainment's David Christensen, new vice president of business development and international operations, Next-Gen was able to extract SOE's desire to trace Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft and deliver an MMO champ to be remembered by. Their first order of business was to establish an international footprint.

So while keeping a firm hand on Europe and North America, Sony Online Entertainment glanced over to the other half of the world and saw how much work lay waiting for them.

South America, India, Vietnam and the Philippines were just some of the names mentioned by Sony, after they identified the most active countries where MMO gamers would love to try out new games given the chance

But of course, Sony does have its share of competition. So far, Korean development companies have been also successful with their own local products that had taken Asia and parts of the West by storm. Trying to insert a viable product in the same market to compete with tried-and-tested (and free for the most part) MMOs would prove unnervingly difficult.

Hakkyu Kim's Granado Espada (Sword of the New World) is one such title that has just recently been tapped into by the Asian market following the recent announcement of a closed beta program. It's been gaining amazing foothold on most Asian countries and could become a brilliant Asian WoW by itself.

But Christensen is still keeping positive, claiming that they do have an ability to enter the local markets and not "be competing with several hundred MMOs" that gamers are already hooked into. SOE is currently trying to establish relations with key entertainment and online technology companies.

They already have games in Taiwan, China and Korea, but Christensen remains adamant that it's just "a very small footprint" they they have established on foreign markets. Is it safe to say that the world MMO market should be seeing Sony branded MMO games coming to other countries soon? With Sony's premier focus on catering to low-cost local economies, you could say that.

Blizzard has announced that the Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft has gone live in the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. The expansion's launch in mainland China is still being prepared, and localization of the MMORPG into Simplified Chinese is currently.

The Blizzard Online Store also has a couple of new items this month. First is BradyGames' official strategy guide for Burning Crusade. The strategy guide includes a lot of info on the new races and weapons found in the expansion. It also has a pretty in-depth look at the Hellfire Citadel and the Outland itself.

Those looking for some tips about the new PvP system in World of Warcraft will also get the lowdown on each of the new PvP zones. The strategy guide also covers every single recipe for every crafting profession. From 1 to 400, it's all in the guide. If that's not enough for you, there are also exclusive new World of Warcraft comics from Penny Arcade included in the guide.

The second new item is the Onyxia's Lair Raid Deck for the World of Warcraft TCG. The new deck comes with everything a player needs to control the iconic dragon and incinerate others into oblivion. In addition to a full Onyxia monster deck, each Raid Deck comes with Whelp tokens, oversize Onyxia hero cards, and a treasure pack with foil cards exclusive to this raid - not to mention a higher frequency of Loot cards.

We all know that World of Warcraft (WoW) is bugged but that doesn't stop us from playing. To compensate, Blizzard Entertainment implements various hot fixes and maintenance schedules every now and then to keep our favorite MMO running. Quite unfortunately, a blossoming love story ended, due to one of the said updates/fixes.

A maintenance schedule was put in effect in Taiwan World of Warcraft (TWoW) a couple of days ago. Now, one player known us Bimmy Frostwolf claimed that he/she was separated from a lover. This happened because after the downtime, when Bimmy was suddenly shifted to another server. Needless to say, our lov birds couldn't track eachother anymore.

Bimmy Frostwolf even made a music video of the sad event because he/she doesn't want to forget. The video clip was rather mushy but we have to remind you, this server shifting incident is a very serious one. Blizzard should try and fix this at once lest its developers want to see more than seven million WoW players lost, angry, and brokenhearted.

Down over at Hall 1 of the Taipei World Trade Center, the 2007 Taipei Game Show is currently on going (every 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from February 8-12, 2007). It's here that Microsoft put on quite a show, featuring its next-generation console the Xbox 360.

Going all out shine all stage lights on their flagship gaming console, it's strange that no other console was present to steal the limelight. With a large white and green stage and a demo gaming floor chock full of BenQ LCD TVs and consoles, gamers will be able experience games first-hand, and in high-definition, on the 360.

Interested gamers can also avail of an Xbox 360 Core package and a BenQ HD LCD TV (32-inch or 42-inch) for NT$ 49,900 (US$ 1,514) or NT$ 69,900 (US$ 2,121), exclusively from the Taipei Game Show. Microsoft is also offering an Xbox 360 package which includes the console, a hard drive, two controllers, a headset and a copy of IAA Game of the Year, Epic Games' Gears of War, for NT$ 13,980 (US$ 425).

Also present at the show was Blizzard's World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade promotion, in preparation for the launching of Burning Crusade in Taiwan. Hellgate: London also managed to put up a frightening display of life-size monsters and demo stations, signalling the its arrival this summer in Taiwan.

  

It's not what you're thinking. The Taipei Game Show is actually a sort of Taiwanese E3. It showcases upcoming game titles and hardware bargains.

The Burning Crusade was one of the titles in the spotlight as players from Taiwan are still waiting for its release, presumably during the first half of this year. The visitors were able to preview the game and took part in a PvP tournament (5-on-5). The taste of Outland is probably enough to fuel their patience until its release

The 2007 Taipei Game Show is currently on at the Taipei World Trade Center Hall 1 until February 12, with Soft-World serving as Blizzard's partner in the region.

Just one question: Is he a warlock, or a mage?

World of Warcraft has hordes of followers, recently ticked at a whopping eight million subscribers. This is the most popular MMO we're talking about and it's bent on conquering the world. They have a following in several countries and it won't be a surprise if they rake in more players after the launch of the Burning Crusade.

Now that I think about it, why IS WoW non-existent in Japan? We've heard of the following speculations:

Korean MMOs are the overlords of Asia. Hmm, this is partly true but then anything would struggle to get a piece of the market share when a new competitor crops up every week. It is the downside of the MMOs success and everybody has to live with it. One should think that a giant like Blizzard has nothing to fear since it has already captured substantial markets in China, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Japan isn't worth conquering. Is the Japanese MMO market too small to bother with? Well, a whole can of worms would be opened for that discussion, especially when there is a large fanbase that backs up FFXI. Some say that the Japanese market is a casual gamer's market. WoW is designed for both the hardcore gamer and the casual gamer (read: rested state) so this really isn't a major problem.

WoW is not on the DS. Right. (squints) Is PC gaming really that small in Japan? Not really insignificant enough to be ignored. Japanese players have discovered the word "Import" and are playing WoW on the U.S. servers in Pacific Standard Time. This would require prepaid game card or a credit card. They even found a way around the language problem by using a mod that lets them type and view Japanese characters. But what they've been waiting for is a translated version.

The theories above are plausible but then we came up with our own set of speculations:

The Japanese culture. The Japanese have a tendency to support their homegrown products resulting in a great economy considering it's size. Maybe Blizzard's trying to find a way around that and that's what's taking them so long.

Blizzard IS planning a Japanese release. After the launch of Burning Crusade, who knows what else is up Blizzard's sleeves? Hints of new Starcraft and Diablo have been received quite openly. Let's hope a truly worldwide WoW is also in the works.

Whatever their reasons are, Blizzard has been tight lipped regarding the issue and we're left to wonder. What's next for WoW after Burning Crusade? Is WoW ever going to see Japanese shores? Hopefully, we'll find out soon enough.

It's a region with a really dense and strong MMORPG fanbase - how could Blizzard have left the Orient out of the picture? Well, players in the Far East will now have something to look forward to; it's just been confirmed that the WoWThe Burning Crusade expansion will also be blazing its way to the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.

Blizzard recently announced on the WoW site that a deal to this end has already been sealed with their local partner, Soft-World, who will also be handling the operation and distribution of the expansion. Soft-World will also be providing community and customer support for that region. What's more, localization of the game into Traditional Chinese is already underway, and they're planning to make it available to the public shortly after TBC's launch in January.

In the meantime, talks are still ongoing with The9 who may or may not be handling TBC in mainland China, so stay tuned.

Software distributor Soft-World International, the largest in the Chinese market, has filed a lawsuit worth US$3.78 against popular games-maker Square-Enix. Demanding the return of a royalty payment, Soft-World alleges that Square-Enix failed to fulfill its obligation as stipulated in a 2004 contract regarding the distribution of one of the latter's MMORPGs in Taiwan, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

According to the contract, Square-Enix was supposed to supply the company with the relevant source code for the MMORPG. Having failed to do so, the distribution of the game became problematic, thereby incurring losses for Soft-World.

Soft-World International currently handles Chinese language versions of popular MMO's RF Online, WoW and Ragnarok Online amongst others. Square-Enix, on the other hand, is a  Japanese producer of video games and manga, and is best known for its console role-playing game franchises, including the Final Fantasy series and the Dragon Quest series.

Square-Enix is yet to issue a comment regarding the lawsuit as of press time.