Sunsoft
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| Type | Public (JASDAQ: 6736) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video game |
| Founded | April 16, 1971 |
| Headquarters | Kōnan, Aichi, Japan |
| Products | List of games released by Sunsoft |
| Website | http://www.sunsoftgames.com |
Sunsoft (サンソフト) is a Japanese video game development company founded on April 16, 1971 as a division of Sun Corporation, itself a division of Sun Electronics, or Sun Denshi Corporation (サン電子株式会社) in Japan (its U.S. subsidiary operated under the name Sunsoft of America, though games they published showed a logo that read only SUNSOFT).
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[edit] History
Sunsoft's history in video games began in arcades with two video games released in 1978: Block Challenger and Block Perfect. They later had several arcade hits in the early 1980s such as Arabian, Ikki and Kangaroo. In the latter half of the 1980s Sunsoft began developing original games and technology for the home video game console market, with emphasis mostly on the NES. Sunsoft had gone international at that time, and it had the publishing might to secure major licenses of the day (such as Batman and The Addams Family).
Outside Japan, the definite golden era for the company was the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), on which their games were widely considered state of the art in graphical and aural prowess. Sunsoft was slow to transition to 16-bit consoles, however, releasing several NES and Famicom titles that went unnoticed at launch, and have only been rediscovered by enthusiasts recently, such as: Ufouria (Hebereke), Mr. Gimmick (Gimmick!), and Journey to Silius (Raf World). The games Sunsoft produced in the 16-bit era were no longer as polished or cutting-edge, the licenses were less prominent, and no new hit games appeared. Finally, in 1995, they heavily restructured in the face of bankruptcy, eventually resurfacing with a scant number of video games for the PlayStation such as Monster Seed and games for the Game Boy Color. Additionally, a number of Sega games, including Fantasy Zone, Fantasy Zone II and After Burner, have been ported for Nintendo consoles by Sunsoft.
Prior to its re-emergence in the domestic USA, the last games released and published by this company state-side were Eternal Eyes, Blaster Master: Blasting Again, Blaster Master: Enemy Below and Power Quest. Citing several factors, like yet-another "next generation" console transition, and high overhead production costs, Sunsoft closed its offices in America and Europe, and initiated a re-organization. Today, Sunsoft has continued to operate out of its corporate headquarters in Japan, developing and publishing role-playing video games, pachinko games and mahjong games and mobile platform titles in partnership with other companies such as NTT DoCoMo and Yahoo!.
On September 14, 2006, Nintendo announced that the developer was a partner on the Wii's Virtual Console.[1] Although this relationship with Nintendo took a few years to bear fruit, on December 4, 2009, Sunsoft announced[2] that they were partnering with GaijinWorks to bring Blaster Master to Virtual Console that month for 500 Wii Points. Also as of December 10, 2009, the company has also acquired Telenet Japan's entire game library.[3] On February 6, 2010, Sunsoft announced the release of Blaster Master: Overdrive for WiiWare, 2 days prior to its release. Afterwards, Sunsoft also published Aero the Acrobat, Aero the Acro-Bat 2 and Ufouria (also known as Hebereke) to WiiWare.
[edit] Products
- For a list of video games released by Sunsoft, see List of games released by Sunsoft.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "NCL Wii Event". GoNintendo.com. http://gonintendo.com/?p=5586.
- ^ "Blaster Master Coming to VC in December". NintendoWorldReport.com. http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=20482.
- ^ "Debrief: Sunsoft acquired entire Nihon Telenet software library". http://www.sunsoftgames.com/news/2009-12-10_20Nihon_20Telenet_20Library.html.
