Hudson Soft (defunct)

About

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game publisher and developer, headquartered in Sapporo, Japan. Founded in 1973, it was bought by Konami in 2000, who owned the company until March 1st, 2012, when Hudson was shuttered and officially made part of the larger Konami Digital Entertainment group.

Franchises

Adventure Island | Bloody Roar | Bomberman | Bonk | Deca Sports | Dungeon Explorer | Kishin Douji Zenki | Momotaro Dentetsu | Neutopia | Robopon | Star Soldier | Tengai Makyou |

History

Hudson Soft was founded in Sapporo, Japan on May 18th, 1973, by Yuji and Hiroshi Kudo. Hudson was at first a shop selling art, photographs and telecommunications device. They started selling PCs in 1975, and finally developing and selling video games in 1978.

They became Nintendo's first third party software developer for the NES. Hudson sold 1. 2 million copies of Lode Runner, their second game after its release in 1984. They would go on to develop video games for the Famicom, NEC PC, MSX and the ZX Spectrum respectively and was reorganized from a shop to a serious software developer under the name Hudson Soft Co. , Ltd in November 1984. In 1985 one of their greatest hits, Bomberman was released for the Famicom.

In July 1987, Hudson started developing hardware. Their console was codenamed the C62 System, and was created in collaboration with Nippon Electric Corporation. It would ultimately by called the PC Engine in Japan, where it would be the second most sold console (after the Famicom), and as the TurboGrafx 16 in North America and Europe - although there they would be less successful than the SNES and Sega's Genesis. Through 1990, Hudson Soft was developing games for all systems. In 1987 Hudson designed the "HuC62" chip which would later be used in NEC's PC-FX.

In December 2000, Hudson Soft Co. , Ltd. entered the stock market, listing on Nippon New Market Hercules, formerly known as NASDAQ Japan Exchange. This led to Konami purchasing a stock allocation of 5. 6 million shares in August 2001, becoming the company's largest shareholder. Within the terms of this purchase, Hudson acquired the Sapporo division of Konami Computer Entertainment Studio, renaming it Hudson Studio.

On March 1st, 2012 Hudson Soft officially ceased to exist as it would be absorbed into Konami Digital Entertainment, while its music department would become part of Konami Music Entertainment.