HAL Laboratory

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HAL Laboratory, Inc.
Type Subsidiary of Nintendo
Industry Video game industry
Founded February 21, 1980[1]
Headquarters Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan[1]
Key people Satoru Iwata (former president)
Masahiro Sakurai
Products Video games
Website http://www.hallab.co.jp/

HAL Laboratory, Inc. (株式会社ハル研究所 Kabushikigaisha Haru Kenkyūjo?) is a Japanese video game developer that was founded on February 21, 1980. It is headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo.[1] Its name comes from the HAL 9000 computer in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.[2] The company is most famous for its character Kirby, the protagonist of the eponymous game series, as well as the Super Smash Bros. series. It is a subsidiary of Nintendo and thus creates games exclusively for Nintendo.

HAL Laboratory started off making games for the MSX system and the Commodore VIC-20.[3] During the early 1980s, some of their games since the 1986 Family Computer Disk System game Gall Force: Eternal Story (based on the anime film of the same name) have been released also on Nintendo systems.

In many of its games during the early to mid-'90s it used the name HALKEN (derived from their literal Japanese name "HAL KENkyūjo") as well as HAL Laboratory. Some of its early titles were also released as HAL America, a North American subsidiary of the company.

The current president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, was a former president of HAL. Other important figures include Masahiro Sakurai, who created the Kirby character and the Super Smash Bros. franchise, and now leads his own company, Sora Ltd.

Contents

[edit] List of games

[edit] Commodore 64

[edit] Coleco Vision

[edit] MSX

[edit] MSX2

[edit] Family Computer Disk System

[edit] Nintendo Entertainment System

[edit] Super NES

NCAA Basketball was produced for HAL America by Tim Rooney and Adam Flick, and programmed by Sculptured Software in Salt Lake City. The completed game was sold to Nintendo of America, who released it in the US.

[edit] Nintendo 64

[edit] Nintendo GameCube

[edit] Game Boy

[edit] Game Boy Color

[edit] Game Boy Advance

[edit] Nintendo DS

[edit] Nintendo 3DS

[edit] Wii

[edit] Windows

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c "Company". http://www.hallab.co.jp/company_data_en.html. Retrieved 2007-09-17. 
  2. ^ IGN: GDC 2005: Iwata Keynote Transcript
  3. ^ commodore.ca | History | Michael Tomzyck VIC-20 Executive
  4. ^ http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/01/29/nintendo_wii_titles/

[edit] External links

Portal icon Tokyo portal
Portal icon Nintendo portal
Portal icon Companies portal
First-party
Second-party
Former second-party
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