Taking up where he left off last month, Steve Myers continues his commentary on recent music game releases in Japan that turn controllers and mobile devices into virtual musical instrument.

On October 16, Nintendo released its highly anticipated Wii Music for the Japanese market, followed shortly thereafter by the US release. In this issue of MMW, we take a look at the new game and describe how it differs from other popular music games.

This month's Music Media Watch takes a look at HearJapan, an English-language online music store dedicated to selling Japanese music. Also, a brief look at the case of the music companies monopoly on ringtones, as well as KDDI partnering with Yamaha to create a musical instrument/mobile phone plus other news.

After nearly four years of investigation, the Japanese Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) has finally handed down a ruling against the founding companies of Label Mobile, the joint venture that saw alleged price-fixing and collusion. But what does this ruling really mean? Are we likely to see anything change? Steve Myers takes a closer look.

After it was acquired last year, EMI's restructuring appears to be having some major consequences including the job cuts and the flight of talent. Plus, the iPhone in Japan and RIAJ's opening of J-Pop music information sites in English and Chinese.

This month's MMW covers the latest competition for portable audio recorders, SoftBank Mobile's forthcoming release of the 3G iPhone in Japan, Yamaha's offering online piano lessons over Skype and much much more.

This issue of Music Media Watch takes an in-depth look at Sony's acquisition of Gracenote plus our regular round-up of music media news.

On April 3, the Record Industry Association of Japan officially
released the 'RIAJ Yearbook 2008,' its annual roundup of sales
figures, statistics and trends from the previous year.

Music Media Watch takes a look at SNS site Mixi's new music station service, RIAJ's sales figures for music downloads in 2007 and Sony's new walkman releases.

Music Media Watch looks at KDDI's plans to broadcast concerts live on all FM radio stations in Japan, Yamaha starts Y-TV service to promote products and events, Roland to debut new products at Sound Spark 2008 event,Sony's NetJuke software to work with KDDI's LISMO service and NTT DoCoMo makes Melody Call trial previews available for non-subscribers.