The company's headquarters are in Minato, Tokyo.[5] Their US branch, Bandai Namco Holdings USA, was officially formed on January 6, 2008, and handles the US operations of the company from their headquarters in Irvine, California.[6] As of 2017, Bandai Namco was the world's largest toy company measured by total revenue, earning $6.4 billion in annual revenue.[7]
History
The previous logo for Bandai Namco was used until 2022
On May 5, 2005, Namco Ltd. announced it was merging with Bandai Co., Ltd. to form NAMCO BANDAI Holdings Inc. (株式会社バンダイナムコホールディングス), with stock transfer to be completed on September 29.[8]
The merger was finalized on September 25, creating the third-largest video game publisher in Japan by revenue.[9] Bandai purchased Namco for US$1.7billion, with Namco receiving 43 percent of shares and Bandai receiving the other 57 percent.[10][11][12] Officially, Namco was purchased by Bandai for $1.7billion.[13][14] 57% of the company's holding went to Bandai while 43% went to Namco. Furthermore, Bandai swapped one of its shares for 1.5 shares of the new Namco Bandai. Namco traded evenly with a one-for-one share,[15] carried out via a share exchange. The shareholders of Namco received one NBHD share for each Namco share and the shareholders of Bandai received 1.5 NBHD shares for each Bandai share.[16] Prior to the merger, Bandai and Namco had various subsidiaries that worked under them. After the merger of Bandai Namco, the respective Bandai and Namco subsidiaries were re-designated into different areas of the combined conglomerate.
On March 31, 2006, Namco merged with Bandai's video game operations to form Namco Bandai Games.[17][18] Namco's video arcade and amusement park divisions were spun-off into a new subsidiary that retained the Namco branding.[17]
In September 2006, BNHD acquired CCP Co., Ltd. from Casio and made it a wholly owned subsidiary.[19][20] BNHD have since fully acquired developers Banpresto (whose video game operations were absorbed into Bandai Namco Games on April 1, 2008)[21] and Namco Tales Studio since the merger. Formerly, both were partially owned by Bandai and Namco respectively.
The business of Bandai Networks Co., Ltd. was merged into Bandai Namco Games in April 2009 and Bandai Networks subsequently ceased to exist as a separate company.[22]
Namco Bandai bought a 34% stake in Atari Europe on May 14, 2009, paving the way for its acquisition from Infogrames.[23] Until June 30, 2012, Infogrames had the option to sell the other 66% in Atari Europe to NBHD.[24] Between June 30, 2012, to June 20, 2013, Bandai Namco gained the option to acquire the 66% stake.[25][26] On July 7, 2009, Bandai Namco Holdings bought 100% of Atari Australia Pty Ltd. BNHD acquired 100% of the shares of Atari Asia Holdings Pty. Ltd. and 100% of the shares of Atari UK Ltd.[27]
Bandai Namco acquired D3 Inc., the parent company of D3 Publisher, on March 18, 2009,[28] after first acquiring a 95% stake in the company.[29] In August 2013, Bandai Namco opened a studio in Vancouver, broadening its reach for western demographics.[30]
In October 2019, Bandai Namco Holdings announced plans to acquire Sotsu, a move which will grant the company rights to the entire Gundam franchise, which the company already holds part of due to owning the studio Sunrise and due to Bandai being one of the producers of the series.[31]
The company unveiled a new logo and a new mission statement in September 2021 which will be implemented starting on April 1, 2022, to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the founding as Bandai five years before the founding of Namco. The company's updated purpose was "the idea of connecting and working together to create things", and plans to work with fans of their games through communication to help plan how the company will go forward. As part of that, the new logo is based on a fukidashi, a speech bubble that represents both the worldwide influence of Japanese manga as well as their efforts to be communicative with players. On February 8, 2022, the company changed the color of their new logo from magenta to rose red.[33]
In July 2022, Bandai Namco confirmed that an unspecified party hacked the company, gaining unauthorized access to internal systems to multiple groups in Asia outside Japan.[34]
Corporate structure
Bandai Namco Holdings is headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Mita Building in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its North American branch, Bandai Namco Holdings USA, is headquartered in Irvine, California. The company's European and Asian divisions, Bandai Namco Holdings UK and Bandai Namco Holdings Asia, are headquartered in Richmond, London and Central, Hong Kong respectively. In September 2017, Bandai Nanco Holdings established China divisions headquartered in Shanghai.[35]
Bandai Namco Holdings is headed by president Mitsuaki Taguchi and chairman Shukuo Ishikawa, both of whom took their respective positions in 2018. The company's corporate structure is grounded in the relationships between its employees and subsidiaries; Bandai Namco believes that the health and motivation of its employees is necessary to sustain operations, as it allows for additional creative freedom in its array of products. As of 2019, Bandai Namco is the world's largest toy company by revenue, having accumulated over $6.5 billion.[36][37] It is among the largest and most profitable companies in Japan with over ¥189.8 billion as of 2020.[38]
In February 2021, Bandai Namco Holdings announced the merger of its business units. As part of the changes to be done in April 2021, it will reduce its operating units from five to three. Toys & Hobby and Network Entertainment Unit (video games) merged to form Entertainment Unit, Visual and Music Production Unit (production and distribution of anime and music) and IP Creation Unit (Production of anime) merged to form IP Production Unit and Real Entertainment Unit was renamed Amusement Unit (theme parks).[39]
Content units and subsidiaries
Prior to the recent reorganization into just three business units, Bandai Namco Holdings was structured into six product areas known as Content Units: Toys and Hobby (toys), Network Entertainment (video games), Real Entertainment (amusement parks), Visual and Music Production (anime and music albums), IP Creation (creation of new intellectual properties), and Affiliated Business (supporting companies).[40] The Network Entertainment Unit serves as the core area of the company, where it is led by Bandai Namco Entertainment, the company's video game publishing arm. Bandai Namco Entertainment owns multiple subsidiaries, including Bandai Namco Studios,[41]B.B. Studio, and D3 Publisher,[42] all of which develop video games for home video game systems and cellular phones across the world.[43] It holds multiple international divisions itself, including offices in the United States, Europe, and Taiwan. Often, the Entertainment division serves as the spearhead for market expansion. It established the Shanghai division in 2015,[44] two years before the Bandai Namco Holdings established its China division.
The Toy and Hobby Unit is led by Bandai, who designs toys and electronic devices based on licenses such as Dragon Ball, Gundam, and Sailor Moon.[45] Bandai Spirits designs toys intended for more mature audiences, alongside prizes for video arcades.[46] MegaHouse designs figurines and toys for candy machines, as does Heart Corporation for seasonal events. Other companies under the unit include Seeds, which produces medical equipment; Plex, a designer of toys based on licensed characters;[47] Sun-Star, which designs and distributes stationery to consumers and Japanese school systems; CCP, a producer of sundries and consumer electronics; and Banpresto Sales, a distributor of prizes for arcades.
Bandai Namco Amusement, known as simply Namco until 2018, heads the Real Entertainment Unit. Amusement designs arcade games and maintains the company's amusement parks, including Namco Namja Town, Wonder Bowl, and its VR Zone locations. Video games designed by Amusement include Time Crisis 5, Star Wars Battle Pod, Pac-Man Racing, and Galaga Fever.[48] In addition, Amusement provides services for Bandai Namco's "Banacoin" digital currency platform and mobile applications to promote events at its arcades. Assisting the company are Bandai Namco Technica and Bandai Namco Amusement Lab, which provide repair services and research & development (R&D) operations respectively.[49]Hanayashiki Co., Ltd. operates Japan's oldest surviving theme park of the same name, while PleasureCast maintains and opens amusement centers across Japan.[50] The Visual and Music Production is hemmed by Bandai Namco Arts and Actas, anime production studios; Highway Star, a music artist manager; and Bandai Namco Live Creative, handling ticket sales and production of live concerts.
Sunrise, a Japanese anime studio known for productions such as Mobile Suit Gundam and Cowboy Bebop, is the center of the IP Production Unit. Sunrise holds three subsidiaries—music copyright manager Sunrise Music, animation planner Sunrise Beyond, and production house Bandai Namco Pictures[51]—which are also part of the unit. Sotsu is an advertising agency that also provides planning and productions for anime series such as Gundam. Bandai Namco's Affiliated Business comprises companies that provide additional support and resources. Companies under this unit include the product distributors Bandai Logipal and Logipal Express, finance manager Bandai Namco Business Arc, day care facility operator Kaikaya, toy distributor Happinet, graphic design studio Artpresto,[52] and disability supporter Bandai Namco Will.
Atari is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French company Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, California, USA in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
Bandai Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational toy manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Taitō, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Toys & Collectables America and Bandai UK, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California, and Richmond, London. Since 2006, Bandai is the toy production division of Bandai Namco Holdings. Between 1981 and 2001, Bandai was a manufacturer of video game consoles.
Namco Limited was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Namco Taiwan in Kaohsiung, and Shanghai Namco in mainland China.
Atari Games Corporation, known as Midway Games West Inc. after 1999, was an American producer of arcade games. It was formed in 1985 when the coin-operated arcade video game division of Atari, Inc. was transferred by Warner Communications to a joint venture with Namco. It was one of several successor companies to use the name Atari. The company developed and published games for arcades and across consumer gaming consoles such as the Commodore 16, Commodore 64, Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and other platforms using the Tengen label. Some of the games Atari had developed include Tetris, Road Runner, RoadBlasters and Primal Rage. After Time Warner reassumed full ownership in 1994, the company was sold to WMS Industries in 1996, and became part of Midway Games when that company was spun-off by WMS in 1998. It ceased operations in 2003 and its former assets were sold back to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in 2009 following Midway's bankruptcy.
Dig Dug is a maze arcade video game developed by Namco in 1981 and released in 1982, distributed in North America by Atari, Inc. The player controls Dig Dug to defeat all enemies per stage, by either inflating them to bursting or crushing them underneath rocks.
Bandai Visual Co., Ltd. was a Japanese anime, film production, and distribution company, established by Bandai and a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings. They focused mainly in international distribution of anime properties in North America.
Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. is a Japanese global conglomerate formed from the merger of Sega and Sammy Corporation in 2004. Both companies are involved in the amusement industry.
Banpresto Co., Ltd. was a Japanese video game developer and publisher headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. It had a branch in Hong Kong named Banpresto H.K., which was headquartered in the New Territories. Banpresto was a partly-owned subsidiary of toymaker Bandai from 1989 to 2006, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings from 2006 to 2008. In addition to video games, Banpresto produced toys, keyrings, apparel, and plastic models.
Galaga '88 is a 1987 fixed shooter arcade video game by Namco. It is the third sequel to Galaxian. It features significantly improved graphics over the previous games in the series, including detailed backgrounds, larger enemies and greater ship details. The game runs on Namco System 1 hardware.
Namco Bandai Partners S.A.S. was a video game distribution company that was an amalgamation of several former Atari SA offices located in PAL territories, which were acquired beginning in 2009 by Bandai Namco Holdings.
Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. is a Japanese multinational video game publisher owned by Bandai Namco Holdings. It was founded in 2006 as Namco Bandai Games Inc., following the 2005 merger of Namco and Bandai. Namco acquired Bandai's video game business division through a corporate split. In 2009, Bandai Namco Games absorbed Bandai Networks. It is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo.
Masaya Nakamura was a Japanese businessman and the founder of Namco. He was the company's president up until 2002, where he took a ceremonial role in its management. Following the formation of Bandai Namco Holdings, Nakamura would retain an honorary position in the video game division, Bandai Namco Entertainment.
Atari SA is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. It is the current owner of the Atari brand through Atari Interactive.
Bandai Namco Pictures Inc., also known as BN Pictures, is a Japanese animation studio and production company. It is a spinoff of Sunrise, a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Filmworks which is owned by Bandai Namco Holdings. The company was formed as a part of the medium-term management plan of Bandai Namco Holdings on restructuring itself. All the anime intellectual property and production divisions of Sunrise that aims at children and family were transferred to Bandai Namco Pictures. The company began its operations in April 2015.
B.B. Studio Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game development company. The company is a result of a merger between BEC and Banpresoft by their parent company, Bandai Namco Entertainment.
↑ Feldman, Curt (December 13, 2005). "Bandai, Namco to merge". GameSpot. Archived from the original on April 8, 2014. Retrieved February 9, 2020.
↑ Karlin, David (November 1, 2006). "Bandai and Namco Finalize Merger Details". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on March 12, 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2020. With around 1800 employees, Bandai Namco Games will be established on March 31st, 2006.
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