DeNA, the mighty Japanese social gaming company, is attempting to extend its influence on social gaming by branching out of Japan and into the West with its MiniNation social networking platform. This isn’t surprising considering its massive popularity in Japan (an awesome 18 million subscribers), yet many Westerners are still to encounter this phenomenal social gaming trend. DeNA intends to change this with the recent launch of MiniNation as a free iPhone app offering blogs, mini-mails (e-mails), chat rooms, avatars, shared interest communities (even its own currency) and, though its entry into the UK market is modest (just four games in comparison to the thousands available in Japan), Sodoku and Solitaire fiends will love it. But will DeNA succeed in surprising and delighting new users, or will it fail to compete with the App Store’s expanding wealth of social network link-ups and games?