What the whole corpus means for each MIXI business, in one place. Each layer's So What is limited to what that layer alone shows; themes that recur across layers are stated here once.
This page reads across the 27 layers and describes what bears on each MIXI business. Weight follows the size of each business, not the volume of news, so Digital Entertainment, which earns about 80% of segment profit, comes first. It describes; it does not recommend. Every figure is in a sourced layer, and the evidence sits in each item's detail. AI companions get much coverage but are left out because MIXI's revenue exposure to them is small.
Updated 2026-10-03
Structures across businesses
Sports leads revenue; Digital Entertainment still earns the profit
In Q1 FY2027 Sports became the largest segment by revenue for the first time at ¥21.67bn, but its segment profit was ¥1.26bn. Digital Entertainment's ¥10.88bn was about 80% of the total. Full-year operating profit guidance stays at ¥19.5bn (-12.4% year on year), and the net income upgrade comes from a one-off gain on the bitbank sale, which closed on 1 October 2026. Revenue has diversified; profit still comes from one business built around Monster Strike.
›Evidence and background
Q1 (April–June 2026) consolidated revenue was ¥47.07bn (+50.3%). Operating profit rose about ¥2.75bn in Q1, while Digital Entertainment's segment profit rose about ¥3.08bn and Sports' only about ¥0.65bn (estimate from disclosed growth rates). Most of the Sports segment's +94.5% comes from consolidating PointsBet, which the prior-year quarter did not include. Segment profit was ¥10.88bn for Digital Entertainment, ¥1.26bn for Sports, ¥0.26bn for Lifestyle and ¥0.86bn for Investment; segment EBITDA margins were about 5.6% for Sports and about 55% for Digital Entertainment. For full-year FY2026, segment profit was ¥43.05bn for Digital Entertainment and ¥5.09bn for Sports. Operating profit fell 16.3% that year while revenue rose 10.7%, because goodwill amortisation from the PointsBet acquisition weighed on operating profit; it is also one reason the Sports margin is thin. Betting margins are thin: PointsBet's CEO said taxes and product fees reach about half of revenue, and betting results also swing with the hold rate. Net income guidance rose from ¥13.5bn to ¥25bn, mainly because of a gain of about ¥12.23bn on the bitbank sale, which closed on 1 October 2026 and falls in Q3 (October–December). The forecast P/E of 9.97x on 25 September 2026 uses EPS that includes this gain; on the pre-revision net income forecast it is about 18.5x (estimate from disclosed figures).
Harm-minimisation rules now target monetisation design and point at both pillars
In betting, Australia restricts sales-linked pay for VIP managers, and NSW has proposed a ban on VIP programmes. Gacha rules (theme th-03) also target a monetisation design: paid random items. Both businesses earn from a small group of high spenders, and the rules target the same thing. The timing differs: betting rules start to bite from 1 January 2027, while Japan, where about 99% of Monster Strike revenue is earned, is the slowest-changing gacha jurisdiction.
›Evidence and background
On the betting side, Australia's reform law (passed 20 August 2026) restricts sales-linked pay for VIP managers and requires operators to identify vulnerable customers. On 25 August NSW announced a four-year A$95.2M package that includes a VIP programme ban. In the US, lawmakers wrote to FanDuel about its VIP programme on 3 September. Ontario's AGCO fined Booming Games C$70,000 on 24 August for enabling a prohibited autoplay feature, which made product design itself a sanction target. PointsBet's Canadian sports handle fell about 39% on fewer VIPs. The gacha-side rules by jurisdiction (PEGI, Brazil, Korea, the EU and Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency) are stated in theme th-03. In whale-type titles the top 5% of payers generate 81% of revenue. Domestic public race betting is also covered: a 2026 guideline caps point rebates at 1% as a rule. The overlap is in what the rules target; jurisdiction and timing differ. Subscription revenue outside these rules (FamilyAlbum) is about 9% of group revenue.
Billing channels opened by law are barely used; each business's own channel share is what counts
Under Japan's smartphone act, a developer survey found 5.9% using alternative app stores and 8.8% using in-app alternative billing. 67.6% use their own web payment without in-app links. The Monster Strike Web Shop is of this type; its usage rate rose to just under half in October–December 2025. Its share of revenue and its effect on fees are not disclosed, and Apple does not allow web-only items. The channel mix in each business, more than the fee schedule, sets the effective fee.
›Evidence and background
The survey by MCF and seven other groups (9 July–7 August 2026, 30 companies, 34 responses, published 26 August) found link-outs at 14.7% for Apple and 11.8% for Google. Of the 10 companies Apple notified about in-app links that predated the act, 9 removed them; all 9 notified by Google did so. Friction explains part of the low use: when Apple cut the EU install flow from 15 steps to 6, abandonment reportedly fell from 65% to 25%. Apple's Japan terms are 21% on App Store sales (+5% with Apple IAP), 15% on web purchases via link-out and a 5% Core Technology Fee for other stores. The Monster Strike Web Shop uses no in-app link and builds awareness through MIXI's own media. On 6 August it added Minna no Ginko payment with 0.5 extra points per ¥100. In the Jujutsu Kaisen collaboration the gacha went on sale on the web before the app; that is a timing difference, not an exclusive. Another layer records the usage rate passing half in FY2026. A usage rate is not a revenue share, and store rankings (Monster Strike second in Japan) exclude web spending. Worldwide, mobile D2C reached about $17bn a year, about 15% of in-app spending. For auto-renewing subscriptions such as FamilyAlbum Premium, the year-two fee under Apple's Japan terms is 10% plus 5% for IAP, about five points above other channels. In the US, Apple may not charge on link-out purchases, and from 1 October 2026 Google charges on its alternative-billing and external-link routes, so Apple's link-out is the only fee-free external route. The Supreme Court's review covers civil contempt only, with a ruling expected around June 2027, and the district court's ruling on Apple's 15% proposal may set the fee level first.
Digital Entertainment (Monster Strike, STRIKE WORLD)FY2026 revenue ¥83.89bn (-10.8%, about 49% of the group), segment profit ¥43.05bn (-2.8%). Q1 FY2027 revenue ¥19.53bn (+21.5%), segment profit ¥10.88bn, about 80% of group segment profit. About 99% of Monster Strike revenue is in Japan. STRIKE WORLD has run in India since April 2026; its downloads, spending and retention are not disclosed.4
NOW
Revenue that rests on spend per user can swing by a quarter's worth on one design decision
In whale-type titles the top 5% of payers generate 81% of revenue. Love and Deepspace saw monthly spending fall 68% after a backlash over one character. MIXI names a UI/UX overhaul as its measure to stop Monster Strike's MAU decline. When revenue offsets falling users with higher spend, a design change in a long-running title moves revenue through community reaction, apart from internal metrics.
›Evidence and background
Japan's store spending fell 5.1% over the latest 12 months, and Monster Strike ranked second in Japan for January–July. Its annual spending peaked at $1.7bn in 2016 and was about $570M in 2024. Domestic rankings cover store spending only and exclude the Web Shop. MCF's measure including external billing put the 2025 domestic market at +8%, so store data alone cannot separate lower spending from spending that moved off-store. In January-July 2026 the growing genres were 4X strategy (+9.4%) and realistic sports (+8%), outside Monster Strike's. Clash Royale widened rewards to lighter players, improved its metrics, and still drew review-bombing. Monster Strike's weekly domestic revenue rank moved from first (16–22 July) to seventh (10–16 September), with revenue down 40% week on week; weekly ranks swing with event cycles, so one week does not show the trend. The segment has other titles (Kotodaman) whose size is not disclosed; in the Kumamoto earthquake donations, Monster Strike channels raised about 32 times more than Kotodaman's (not a revenue ratio).
Growth from IP collaborations competes with the partners' own games for the same high spenders
Q1 growth is explained by higher payer rates and ARPPU from IP collaborations. Meanwhile, IP owners are building their own games. WEBTOON acquired 60% of RI Games Holdings, and hololive Dreams earned $57.2M in its first month, 80% of it in Japan. Collaboration partners increasingly also compete for Japan's high-spending players.
›Evidence and background
Sony's side bundles distribution and production through Animec and HAYATE and holds about 2.5% of Bandai Namco Holdings. Cover raised its interim operating profit forecast by 81% on hololive Dreams licence revenue. Monster Strike has run collaborations such as Bocchi the Rock! and Blue Lock, and Mystery Record works with hololive. A 22 June 2026 JFTC and IP Headquarters guideline asks commissioning parties such as production committees to negotiate fees and put terms in writing, which reaches production costs and rights splits when MIXI commissions anime of its own IP (STRIKE WORLD).
Japanese household spending is falling, and fandom widens while average spend falls, which lighter newcomers can explain
Real household consumption fell 3.6% in July 2026, the eighth monthly decline in a row. Fandom participants rose from about 13.8M to about 19.4M, and annual spend per person fell from about ¥255,000 to about ¥210,000. If existing fans held their spend, newcomers average about ¥97,000, so lighter newcomers alone can explain the fall; the two surveys use separate samples and cannot show whether existing fans cut back. Revenue that grows on spend per user depends on whether the new, lighter fans pay at collaboration price points.
›Evidence and background
Both leisure time and leisure spending fell in 2025. Entertainment services passed 17.7% of cost increases to prices, against 39.9% across industries. Real wages rose 2.4% in July, a seventh positive month. Electricity and gas support ended with September usage, while the petrol subsidy continues at ¥50.7 per litre in October. Tokyo core CPI rose to 2.7% in September, above 2% for the first time in eight months, and the end of the subsidy pushes measured prices up. The yen hit ¥158.22 on 1 October, but there was no intervention between 27 August and 28 September.
The shape of anniversary and collaboration campaigns meets enforcement of Japan's premiums and stealth-marketing rules
For its 13th anniversary Monster Strike ran 13 days of free 10-pulls and a campaign where sharing results on X entered players into an e-gift draw. In August 2026 the Consumer Affairs Agency issued an order under the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums to app operators that paid e-gifts for X posts without ad labels. The paths that bring back lapsed players and create buzz meet enforcement through campaign design, not price.
›Evidence and background
The August order went to the two providers of the Snow app for paying 72 or more influencers without ad labels. In September 2026 YouTube said it will roll out automatic disclosure labels when it detects undeclared sponsorships, so disclosure moves from self-declaration to detection. Monster Strike also offered up to ¥10,000 in e-money prizes in collaborations and ran a free 'Again Gacha' of up to 200 pulls in August. How free and paid campaigns are separated bears on accountability under self-regulation. On 24 August 2026 YouTube changed how it counts public views (the old metric survives as Engaged views), so counts before and after that date cannot be compared; with the IAB's influencer measurement guideline due in October, the basis for judging and pricing tie-ins is being reset.
Betting (PointsBet)Part of the Sports segment (FY2026 revenue ¥65.85bn, +63.8%, segment profit ¥5.09bn; Q1 FY2027 revenue ¥21.67bn, profit ¥1.26bn). PointsBet (66.43% owned) had revenue of A$186.6M and a statutory net loss of A$26.6M in the nine months to March 2026. The yen split within the segment is not disclosed.4
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The staged advertising law moves acquisition costs channel by channel, at different times
The core advertising rules start on 1 January 2027, but the opt-out register may take up to 12 months to build. Direct marketing of inducements is banned for 14 days after sign-up, and affiliate pay linked to betting activity is banned. Existing sponsorships continue, but no new ones can be signed after commencement. PointsBet's acquisition costs move channel by channel, not all at once.
›Evidence and background
The law, passed on 20 August 2026, bans ads from 5:00 to 20:30 and around live sport (from 15 minutes before start to 5 minutes after), and bans broadcasting odds, venue and uniform ads, and endorsements by players and influencers. Register costs are recovered through a levy on operators, on top of state point-of-consumption taxes of 15–25%. On the staffing side, iGaming hiring has shifted to compliance, AML and responsible-gambling roles, which are scarce. Platform rules move the same way: from 14 September 2026 Google limits gambling ad certification to domains the operator owns and controls. Search ads that send users to partner domains fall outside it, and unlike national law the rule can change without consultation or judicial review.
Before the advertising rules start, enforcement of self-exclusion and monitoring is already penalising operating quality
ACMA fined Dabble about A$1.07M for failing to close 157 self-excluded customers' accounts, and AUSTRAC agreed an enforceable undertaking with bet365 in August. In February 2026, Ontario's AGCO proposed a five-day registration suspension for PointsBet Canada over failures to monitor suspicious bets. In both markets, account controls and monitoring are tested before advertising.
›Evidence and background
The 2026 reform requires a BetStop check at every login and requires operators to identify customers showing signs of problem gambling; the detailed criteria are still to be set. The AGCO proposal was reportedly the first suspension in Ontario's regulated market; PointsBet called it disproportionate and said it would seek a tribunal hearing, with no outcome confirmed. In August Ontario fined Betty Gaming C$120,000 over age-verification failures. PointsBet moved its Canadian casino platform to Bede Gaming in April 2026, so age checks and self-exclusion links at the switchover fall under this enforcement approach. PointsBet's chair referred to tighter monitoring of VIP accounts and to MIXI's governance involvement.
Australia is shrinking; growth is concentrated in Canadian online casino
In the nine months to March 2026, PointsBet's Australian revenue fell 4% and statutory EBITDA fell 30% to A$14.2M. Canada grew, with revenue +13% and iGaming net win +28%. Rivals diverge: Entain's Australian online revenue rose 13%, while market leader Sportsbet (about 45% share) has had three years of falling revenue. The periods do not match, so the market's direction cannot be judged, and neither market nor company factors alone explain PointsBet's decline.
›Evidence and background
Australian betting losses rose only 0.9% in 2024-25, and the top three operators hold over three-quarters of the market. In Ontario, casino accounted for 85% of market revenue in August 2026, and sports betting revenue fell 30% month on month. Casino products let losses build quickly, and one study found calls from men aged 15–24 rose 317% after Ontario opened to private operators. PointsBet's Canadian sports handle fell about 39% on fewer VIPs. Betr reported wagering revenue of A$143.8M (+9%) for the year to June 2026, with wider losses; the periods differ and both companies report losses. The +94.5% for the Sports segment in Q1 includes first-time consolidation and does not show the Australian trend.
A shareholder register where a competitor votes as the second-largest holder
MIXI owns 66.43% of PointsBet, but rival Betr holds most of the rest, reportedly about 27.7%. At the 25 August 2026 AGM Betr voted against every resolution, and the remuneration report received a 'first strike'. A second strike in a row leads to a vote on spilling the board, so the 2027 AGM may be a turning point.
›Evidence and background
The takeover did not reach 90%, so the compulsory acquisition and delisting route is closed. PointsBet Holdings stays listed on the ASX, and disclosure duties to minority holders continue. Betr held 19.9% at completion; layers differ in how firmly they confirm its current stake.
Domestic sports and public racing (TIPSTAR, Chariloto, PIST6, Chiba Jets, FC Tokyo)The domestic part of the Sports segment; the yen split within the segment is not disclosed. TIPSTAR grew 12.8% in Q1 FY2027, and Chiba Jets had revenue of ¥5.17bn in the 2024-25 season. netkeiba, run by a subsidiary, has about 17M monthly users.5
NOW
Commissions ride record keirin sales, but market growth has slowed
Keirin ticket sales hit a record ¥1.5487tn in FY2025 (116.6% of the prior year), driven by online betting. TIPSTAR and Chariloto commissions track this turnover. But market growth in Q1 FY2027 was about 3%, while TIPSTAR grew 12.8%. A 2.4-fold rise over ten years and about 3% now are different phases of the same market.
›Evidence and background
The takeout rate for keirin is about 25%. Rising turnover is also rising total stakes, so commission growth and the addiction issue come from the same number. JRA sales were ¥3.4853tn in FY2025.
A rebate cap in public race betting has capped point-based acquisition incentives
Under the 2026 advertising guideline for public race betting, point rebates on betting services are capped at 1% for ordinary races as a rule and 5% for special races, and tiered rewards linked to spend have ended. There is almost no room left to compete with other betting sites on rebate rates. The reason is addiction policy, and public information shows no sign of easing.
›Evidence and background
The amended Basic Act on gambling addiction (in force 25 September 2025) explicitly bans running and promoting online casinos. TIPSTAR and Chariloto, which sell public race tickets, are outside it, but the line between licensed betting and illegal gambling is sharper and the compliance bar for advertising and affiliates is higher. Because betting services and a tipping media outlet (netkeiba) sit under the same owner, rules would not reach the betting service alone.
The legal market is limited to public racing and toto, and the public monopoly protects race organisers, not sales channels
With private bookmakers illegal in Japan, the legal market is limited to public racing and toto, which structurally limits competitors but also leaves little upside. The monopoly protects organisers and the sport, not sales channels. TIPSTAR at first sold all PIST6 tickets, but MIXI sold its stake in the operator in November 2022, and since August 2023 the organiser JPF has also sold tickets on its own site. TIPSTAR's and Chariloto's growth depends on both the legal market's ceiling and competition between channels.
›Evidence and background
PIST6 is not a MIXI business. It has been paused since its 28 September 2025 meet, and Chiba City moved the restart to FY2030; it has been out of keirin sales statistics since October 2025. The MIC report (July 2026) does not rule out blocking online casinos but puts a review of effects first. MGM Osaka (total investment about ¥1.27tn) is due to open in 2030, bringing a regulated casino with strict addiction measures into Japan.
Illegal betting on Japanese sport exceeds ¥1tn, so integrity risk for MIXI's clubs can arise outside any licence
Illegal offshore sports betting from Japan is estimated at about ¥6.5tn a year, of which over ¥1tn targets Japanese sport such as NPB and the J.League, about 7.5 times toto. For FC Tokyo and Chiba Jets, match-fixing and harassment of players can arise in markets outside any licence. In the US, 34 people were charged over NBA prop manipulation after legalisation.
›Evidence and background
On 1 September 2026 Massachusetts started a scheme to exclude bettors who harass players. The National Police Agency estimates about 3.37M online casino users in Japan, and 317 people were arrested in related cases in 2025, the most on record.
Monster Strike and the race-betting service are borrowing each other's campaign mechanics
From 5 October 2026 TIPSTAR runs its first IP collaboration (Ultraman), with a themed UI, a prediction-posting campaign and login bonuses, the method MIXI credits for Monster Strike's ARPU rise. In the other direction, Monster Strike's 13th-anniversary Orb Back Challenge returns up to 500 orbs, based on the smaller of orbs collected and orbs used in the period (250 each at most) and on how many race outcomes a player predicts correctly for a broadcast on 3 November. A reward tied to spend and to prediction accuracy has entered the game.
›Evidence and background
TIPSTAR revenue rose 12.8% in Q1, ahead of keirin market growth of about 3% as MIXI describes it. The more growth relies on IP collaborations and participatory campaigns as the market slows, the more betting growth and questions about inducement and who the campaigns reach sit on the same campaigns. Australia's new law bans gambling endorsements by athletes, celebrities and influencers; in Japan, using IP to promote public race betting has not yet been raised as an issue in public sources.
Lifestyle (FamilyAlbum)FY2026 revenue ¥17.16bn (+16.0%, turned profitable). Q1 FY2027 revenue ¥4.36bn (+24.5%) with segment profit ¥0.26bn, about 9% of group revenue. FamilyAlbum has 30M users worldwide, over 40% outside Japan.4
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Profitable now, but about a tenth of the group, and domestic inflow is thinning with demographics
FamilyAlbum has saturated over 65% of Japanese households with young children, and new families abroad now outnumber those in Japan. Japan recorded 671,236 births in 2025 and a fertility rate of 1.14, a record low for the tenth year. Preliminary marriages for January–July 2026 turned to -6.2%. Subscription revenue sits outside gambling-type rules but is not large enough to absorb swings in gacha or betting.
›Evidence and background
Over 40% of users are outside Japan, about 20% in North America, and the US is the largest overseas market. In a Children and Families Agency survey of about 100,000 people, about 35% of unmarried respondents said they do not intend to marry. Revenue lines now include Premium, photo prints, a GPS tracker and ads, and FamilyAlbum's own revenue rose 31% in Q1. MIXI targets over ¥40bn for its 'WeTime/FamilyAlbum economy', a company goal with no external verification.
Children are data subjects, so rules on retention, erasure and face processing reach FamilyAlbum's design
FamilyAlbum's users are mainly parents, and children have photos and faces stored before they can consent. Retention limits under amended COPPA, GDPR erasure rights and India's DPDP parental-consent duty (fully applied from 14 May 2027) sit in tension with free, unlimited storage from birth. Spain's AEPD treated facial age estimation as biometric data and fined Yoti €950,000.
›Evidence and background
Since 2020 FamilyAlbum has run face detection with age and gender estimation for per-person albums, so processing similar to age verification may be judged the same way in a photo feature. India's DPDP has been referred to a larger bench without a stay, and its data protection board has no members yet. Reporting clocks differ by jurisdiction: 3–5 days for Japan's PPC preliminary report, and 6 hours under CERT-In plus 72 hours under DPDP in India. AWS said data held only at a damaged Middle East facility could not be recovered; for a photo service, loss can be permanent.
Rivals' price per unit of storage is falling, and pass-through to FamilyAlbum's costs is not yet visible
FamilyAlbum Premium costs $2.99–10.99 a month, while the big players' price per unit of storage is falling; Google offers 5TB with AI photo features for $19.99 a month. On the cost side, general DRAM contract prices rose 58–63% quarter on quarter in Q2 2026, but no public data shows pass-through to cloud storage prices. Pressure on price is observable; a rise in cost is not established.
›Evidence and background
Google Photos serves 1.5bn monthly users and 9 trillion photos, and its Gemini integration spreads the use of private photos as AI input while norms remain unsettled. FamilyAlbum's no-public-feed, family-only design is its position in that gap, but the scope of AI training use rests on its own privacy policy and cannot be verified externally. Data-centre electricity is projected to double from 485TWh in 2025 to about 950TWh in 2030, but that is total demand, and about 80% of the increase is in the US and China; what reaches a storage service's cost is regional power prices.
Out-of-store revenue and single purchases are spreading, changing the cost structure
FamilyAlbum launched a family partner programme with Rakuten Travel as its first partner on 1 July 2026, and on 3 September added single sticker purchases at ¥380 a set. In the same space, Tinybeans grew e-commerce revenue 646% to $767,000. Merchandise and referrals sit outside store fees but bring other burdens: cost of goods, inventory, logistics, and accountability for third-party data use.
›Evidence and background
Tinybeans' e-commerce was about 13% of revenue in Q4 alone. Subscribers to the ¥220-a-month sticker plan pay ¥280 for the same set, so the design opens a paid entry point to non-subscribers; the revenue effect is not disclosed. FamilyAlbum uses TikTok creator video ads for overseas acquisition; the reported gains come from co-marketing material, not third-party verification. The earnings release lists advertising among FamilyAlbum's focus areas, and the first Family Partner offer is keyed to the child's 1st–6th birthday. Parents receive the offers, but the targeting comes from the child's data, and it is not yet settled whether DPDP's ban on behavioural ad targeting of under-18s or the amended COPPA's limits on monetising children's data reach that.
InvestmentFY2026 revenue ¥4.44bn (-22.0%), segment profit -49.4%. Q1 FY2027 revenue ¥1.50bn, segment profit ¥0.86bn. Portfolio NAV is ¥59.7bn (about 2.5 times invested capital, per the company). The bitbank sale closed on 1 October 2026, and the gain is expected to be booked as an extraordinary gain in Q3.3
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The bitbank sale has closed, and the one-off gain falls in Q3
MIXI sold all its shares in equity-method affiliate bitbank (26.22% of shares outstanding) for ¥15.59bn, with an expected extraordinary gain of about ¥12.23bn. The sale closed on 1 October 2026, when bitbank bought back MIXI's shares as treasury stock. The gain falls in Q3 (October–December) and lifted net income guidance from ¥13.5bn to ¥25bn, but the operating and ordinary profit plans still show declines. It is a one-off and is not part of core earnings.
›Evidence and background
The sale took the form of a buyback by bitbank on the same day SBI Holdings made it wholly owned through SBICAH. bitbank has left the equity-method scope, which ends MIXI's indirect exposure to crypto-exchange regulation. The gain comes from a share transfer and does not depend on the domestic IPO market.
Fewer domestic IPOs and higher rates are narrowing exits for held assets
Japan had 17 IPOs in H1 2026, about 30% fewer than a year earlier, including 11 on the Growth market, about 40% fewer. Behind this are rising rates and the Growth market's rule of ¥10bn market value within five years of listing. The BoJ raised its policy rate to 1.25% on 18 September. Investment revenue is realised by selling holdings, so thinner exits feed directly into volatile results.
›Evidence and background
The ECB, Fed and BoJ all raised rates within nine days in September, and the US 30-year yield reached 5.63% on 2 October, rising even as hike expectations faded. A higher cost of capital lengthens payback and weighs on valuations. Investment revenue fell in FY2026 after the prior year's jump from a partial sale of Timee shares. In July 2026 MIXI took over part of GREE's domestic VC fund business for about ¥30M.
The India-focused CVC's target market is now sized without real-money gaming
In the Indian market where MIXI's India-focused CVC invests, real-money gaming was about 86% of 2024 online gaming revenue of about $3.7bn. Lumikai puts the non-RMG market at $1.5bn in 2025 (+17%) but sizes the lost RMG category at about $2.3bn, so the two sources do not use the same split, and the gap between $3.7bn and $1.5bn is not a measure of contraction. Even within the permitted lane Dream11 ended paid contests, and the final shape of the rules remains open before the Supreme Court.
›Evidence and background
MIXI Global Investments was set up in 2023 as an India-focused CVC ($50M). By its own account MGI now invests in India and globally, and it runs the second cohort of LVLZero Tokyo, an accelerator for Japanese indie games going overseas (five companies, no equity taken). Its revenue contribution is not disclosed.
Group (AI, talent, BCP, capital)Consolidated FY2026 revenue ¥171.369bn (+10.7%), operating profit ¥22.26bn (-16.3%). FY2027 guidance is revenue ¥185bn, operating profit ¥19.5bn (-12.4%) and net income ¥25bn including one-off gains. 2,116 consolidated regular employees. Share price ¥3,830 (25 September 2026).4
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The 40% payout ratio is calculated on earnings that include a one-off gain
On 31 July 2026 the payout policy moved from 20% to 40% of consolidated earnings, and the FY2027 dividend forecast rose to ¥155. The revised EPS of ¥383.99 includes the bitbank gain; applying the same ¥155 to the pre-revision net income forecast gives a payout of about 75% (estimate from disclosed figures). Whether the return holds depends on recurring profit.
›Evidence and background
At the 25 September close of ¥3,830 the yield is 4.05%; the fall from 5.35% on 31 July reflects a share price rise of about 32%. The forecast P/E is 9.97x, P/B 1.33x and market value about ¥262.5bn. With FY2026 results MIXI set a direction of about ¥300bn revenue and 15% ROE in the early 2030s, a stated direction, not a commitment.
The external models behind group-wide AI can stop through government, vendor or physical-site routes
MIXI's group-wide AI relies on external models, with reported staff usage of 99%. A US export-control order stopped two Anthropic models worldwide for 18 days, and on 3 September a site failure at SpaceXAI took Grok down for about 3.5 hours. On cost, Google will double input prices for its Flash models on 1 January 2027. The cost and availability of the same work now change on vendors' dates.
›Evidence and background
On the morning of 3 September Claude and ChatGPT also had outages (causation unconfirmed), so one physical failure may reach several vendors that seem separate. Vendors may also route work to another model at a safety threshold (cyber use of Opus 5.5). GitHub Copilot moved to token billing on 1 June 2026, and Anthropic says cache reads make up most of agent and coding costs. The UK AISI detected unauthorised real-world actions by agents in 10 of 122 evaluations. The physical route also reaches AI construction: on 24 September Oracle declared force majeure at a 2.45GW Stargate site over delayed gas supply. The usage-weighted inference price fell below $1 per million tokens for the first time, to about $0.96, but cuts and rises run in parallel on each vendor's dates. On the government route, a district court struck the Pentagon's designation of Anthropic on 27 August, while an appeals court upheld its procurement-based exclusion on 25 September; whether government can exclude a model vendor that refuses certain uses is unsettled. The case concerns US government procurement; commercial access to the models was not cut.
AI usage is achieved; the next stage depends on the hardest-to-hire builders
MIXI appointed a CAIO in August 2026 and self-reports group AI usage above 99% and about ¥1bn a year in cost savings, without third-party verification. Its next goal, creating business value with AI, needs depth of building rather than breadth of use, and in Japan demand for people experienced in LLM fine-tuning or MLOps is said to be about eight times supply. Usage and value creation are measured differently.
›Evidence and background
Figures such as a 98% labour cut on one Monster Strike task and video production cut from 21 to 3 days through Runway are single-task, self-reported numbers that exclude review, testing and security work. FY2027 operating profit guidance remains -12.4%. In Japan 67.5% of companies raised graduate starting pay again in 2026, and top offers for AI roles reach ¥10M. Games layoffs widened in 2026, with a year-end forecast of 14,259, centred on Western console and PC development. Hiring them from abroad also depends on a reported JLPT N2 requirement for new Engineer/Humanities entrants, and whether development roles count as jobs that use Japanese is still undefined.
Monster Strike runs on redundant sites, but whether a Tokyo quake would hit them and the head office together cannot be judged from outside
Monster Strike runs on a hybrid of on-premises data centres and cloud, and an October 2025 MIXI talk described inter-DC links with redundant routes and equipment vendors. Server failures caused repeated emergency maintenance from 2023 to June 2026. The sites' locations are not public, so whether a Tokyo inland earthquake (estimated ¥83tn of damage) would hit the head office and the infrastructure together cannot be judged from outside. Only 12% of data-centre capacity lies outside both the Tokyo and Osaka areas, so options outside both are limited.
›Evidence and background
After the Kumamoto earthquake, telecoms and power returned in days, water in about a month and the Shinkansen in 52 days. Ransomware reports in Japan hit a half-year record. Active cyber defence took effect on 1 October 2026 and covers 258 operators. The Cabinet Office draft treats a cloud provider's notice as recognition for SaaS and some PaaS, so the reporting clock starts from a supplier. EU CRA reporting duties began on 11 September, raising provenance checks and handling of secrets in each service's apps and build systems.
Age checks are moving to the OS and store layer, and the focus of regulation has widened from who gets in to how products are built. Australia added an enforcement law on 11 September, and the European Commission proposed the KIDS Act on 17 September. The effect on MIXI differs by business: for FamilyAlbum, a classification question more than an implementation cost; for PointsBet, age-check enforcement; under Apple's Japan terms, a ban on showing external purchases to under-13s.
›Evidence and background
The EU KIDS Act proposal sets 15 as the minimum age for own social media accounts and shifts the burden of proving safe design to companies. It reportedly covers social media, video sharing, app stores, games and AI companions; its reach into games is contested. Australia's ban excludes messaging and YouTube Kids, and the eSafety Commissioner decides coverage case by case. California signed SB 1119 on 10 September, requiring independent child-safety audits of companion chatbots for minors. South Africa rejected a blanket ban. In Ontario, Betty Gaming was fined C$120,000 for age-check failures, and in NSW Crown Sydney and The Star Sydney were fined A$2.25M in total for admitting a minor. Apple's Japan terms require a parental gate for ages 13–17. India's PROG rules require age checks and parental controls even for non-wagering games. In the US, Alabama's store-level law (HB161) and California's OS-level AB1043 both start on 1 January 2027, and Texas SB2420 is enforceable while on appeal. Since September 2026 Apple has required a social-media declaration in its age-rating questionnaire, with no exclusion for closed sharing, so whether FamilyAlbum's private family feed counts depends on its own declaration.
Fee, distribution and billing rules diverge by region, by channel and by when a user installed. Apple's EU terms took effect on 1 October with a 26%/20%/15%/5% schedule, and Google's new rates began in Japan and Australia on 30 September. In the US, Google's external routes carry fees from 1 October, so Apple's link-out is the only fee-free route. India stays on the old 15%/30% schedule. What sets each business's effective cost is the channel mix more than the fee schedule (structure st-03).
›Evidence and background
Google's rates apply to installs from that date; existing users' spending above $1M stays at 25% plus 5% with Google Play billing. Google's fee page gives 30 September 2026 for Japan, with no postponement notice. Users who install from that date pay 10% up to $1M and on auto-renewing subscriptions, and 20% above it; existing users pay 25% above $1M, and Google Play billing adds 5%. The new schedule raises no title's Play billing rate; the cut is smallest for long-running titles built on existing users. Apple's Japan terms are 21% on the App Store (+5% IAP), 15% for link-outs and a 5% Core Technology Fee for other stores, close to the EU terms. The US Supreme Court's review covers civil contempt only, with a ruling expected around June 2027, but the district court's ruling on Apple's 15% proposal may set the link-out fee level first. Epic Games Store opened on iPhone in Japan on 1 May, with no Japanese developers on day one. Estimates of the revenue effect of these rules diverge.
Each jurisdiction regulates differently. Belgium bans paid loot boxes under criminal law, Brazil bans sales to under-18s, Korea allows punitive damages of up to three times for odds-disclosure breaches, and in Europe PEGI rates games with paid random items at 16, while the App Store uses its own scale and a rating does not bar use. In Japan ordinary gacha is outside the premiums rules, and the standard is still the 2012 view plus self-regulation. About 99% of Monster Strike revenue sits in the jurisdiction that is changing slowest.
›Evidence and background
A Consumer Affairs Agency panel finalised its interim report on 10 September 2026: it calls for fairly comprehensive rules on misleading displays and aggressive prompts, with a blacklist of illegal patterns to be set in subordinate rules or guidelines. The 24 August draft did not mention games or gacha. The EU Digital Fairness Act, aimed at dark patterns and addictive design, is planned for Q4 2026. The KIDS Act proposal puts duties on online games covering addictive design and economic transactions, while Article 9, which bans rewards for regular return, targets social media and video sharing; neither source mentions loot boxes. European courts lean against treating FIFA packs as gambling (Dutch Council of State 2022, Austrian Supreme Court 18 December 2025), so in Europe the constraint is moving from gambling law to age ratings and consumer law. India treats premium currencies that hide real prices as a dark pattern. In free-to-play games 5–10% of players generate most revenue, and that concentration is the basis for regulation.
Australia's betting advertising law and PointsBet's acquisition channels
Australia's reform law passed on 20 August 2026 and takes effect on 1 January 2027. It covers ads from 5:00 to 20:30, around live sport, at venues and on uniforms, and influencer endorsements. States regulate how customers are identified, excluded and solicited, and NSW announced a four-year A$95.2M package. State conduct rules stack on top of federal advertising rules.
›Evidence and background
Compared with the bill as introduced, the law brings the ban window earlier, widens the pre-match blackout from 5 to 15 minutes, bans acquisition-linked fees and bonuses, and treats streaming like free-to-air TV. It adds an ACMA opt-out register and a review after three years. The NSW package includes a statewide self-exclusion register using facial recognition, third-party exclusion, a VIP programme ban and express consent for direct marketing. Legal gambling losses in Australia were A$33bn in 2024-25, led by gaming machines. The Australia Institute puts the top five operators' corporate tax at 2% of winnings, while PointsBet's CEO puts tax and regulatory costs at about 50% of revenue; the two do not measure the same thing.
In Japan 85.8% of developers use generative AI, yet 40% of those answering about products do not use it in released products. MIXI says its Runway partnership cut Monster Strike video production from about 21 days to 3. In September 2026 LEVEL-5 drew criticism for using it in a promotional video and booth images, and its president apologised. The step where time savings are reported is the same kind of step where backlash occurred.
›Evidence and background
In the GDC 2026 survey, 52% of developers called generative AI harmful to the industry. On 7 August the Ministry of Justice stated that voices fall within publicity rights, and the IP protection principles adopted on 25 August ask AI firms to tell rights holders whether their works are in training data (no penalty). Whether MIXI's own IP was used in training, and what its vendors disclose, become checkable items. The time savings are single-task, self-reported figures without third-party verification; their effect on segment costs cannot be confirmed until it shows in disclosures. It also reaches implementation: on 9 September Unity released an official plugin that adds 29 skills, including in-app purchase and live-ops implementation, to Claude Code. The same layer is an attack target, so for Unity-built Monster Strike the configuration and plugin provenance of agents that write purchase code join the build stack as things to control.
The yen kept falling after the BoJ's 18 September hike and reached ¥158.22 per dollar on 1 October, which raises dollar-priced cloud and inference costs. PointsBet earns in Australian and Canadian dollars, so the Sports segment's yen translation follows those currencies against the yen, which combine dollar-yen with each currency's moves against the US dollar; officials act on dollar-yen alone. About 99% of Monster Strike revenue is domestic and in yen. The Australian dollar is about US$0.70, and the euro was ¥180.24 on 25 September, which reaches FamilyAlbum's European sales through translation, though the European share is not disclosed.
›Evidence and background
A BoJ rate check was reported, but the Ministry of Finance made no intervention between 27 August and 28 September, and officials look at yen per dollar. In the September Tankan, firms assumed ¥154.23 per dollar for FY2026, about ¥4 stronger than the 1 October rate, which can show up as unplanned cost for buyers of foreign-currency services. Australia raised its cash rate to 4.60% on 29 September (unanimous, the fourth hike of 2026), and August CPI came back to 4.0% on fuel and electricity. The Australian dollar had fallen to about US$0.70 on US-dollar strength just before the hike, so translation followed the US dollar more than rate spreads. Sports' Q1 growth includes first-time consolidation, so currency translation and the business trend must be read separately.