Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Founded | 1997 |
Defunct | 2005 |
Fate | Closed |
Products | Video game |
Parent | NewKidCo International Inc. (1998-2005) |
NewKidCo LLC was an American video game publisher of children's titles based on popular licensed characters, for Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft consoles. The company was a subsidiary of NewKidCo International Inc. (TSE:NKC; OTC BB: NKCIF) [1]
NewKidCo had subsidiary offices in Burlington, Massachusetts and Midtown Manhattan, New York City. [2] At a later point, it was headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, with its only office being there. [3]
NewKidCo Holdings, LLC was formed as a start-up company in 1997 by Henry Kaplan and Jonathan D. Harber, the latter being the former CEO of fellow video game publisher Hi Tech Expressions, with Harber also having worked for the company. Shortly afterwards, the company secured a licensing deal with Children's Television Workshop to publish Sesame Street games for the PlayStation. This was done though Kaplan's long-time partnership with the organization.
On April 21, 1998, NewKidCo Holdings, LLC announced that they had entered into a joint venture with Alpha Software Corporation, a subsidiary of SoftQuad International Inc. to secure game publishing rights; of which Alpha Software would own a majority stake in the business. [4] On the same day, the venture announced that the Sesame Street titles would release in the Fall of 1998. [5] The joint-venture with Alpha Software was finalized on June 10 as NewKidCo LLC, with Alpha holding 75% in the combined company. SoftQuad International soon announced a possible diversion of its hardware assets to focus strictly on video games. [6] [7] At E3 1998, the company secured its third license: Tiny Toon Adventures with the announcement of Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster and the Beanstalk . [8] SoftQuad International was delisted from the NASDAQ on October 9, [9] and on November 10, they had entirely sold SoftQuad Inc.'s assets to private investors and management, sending the company private. This completed the international division's move to children's video games and were renamed NewKidCo International Inc. [10] Prior to that, the company began releasing games for the Game Boy Color with Elmo' ABCs and Elmo's 123s. [11]
In March 1999, The Learning Company (later Mattel Interactive) secured North American distribution rights to NewKidCo's titles in North America. These rights expired in July 2000 when NewKidCo decided to open up their own distribution network. [12]
At E3 1999, the company entered the Nintendo 64 market with enhanced ports of Elmo's Letter Adventure and Elmo's Number Journey, [13] as well as a Game Boy Color tie-in game to the film The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland . [14] The company also secured a license to release video games based on Hello Kitty from Sanrio. [15] On June 15, NewKidCo International Inc. purchased out NewKidCo Holdings LLC's 25% share in NewKidCo LLC, becoming a fully-owned subsidiary. [16] On October 7, the company entered into a publishing deal with Disney Interactive to release titles based on the Winnie the Pooh franchise, as well as a PlayStation port of Disney's Animated Storybook: Mulan . [17] On December 18, the company secured a license from Sony Pictures Family Entertainment Group to release Dragon Tales video games. [18]
At E3 2000, the company secured the E.T. license from Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment [19] and Tom & Jerry from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. In July 2000, Ubi Soft signed a publishing deal with the company to allow them to release the company's titles in PAL region territories. [20] The partnership was extended in January 2001. [21]
Hudson Soft Co., Ltd. was a Japanese video game company that released numerous games for video game consoles, home computers and mobile phones, mainly from the 1980s to the 2000s. It was headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo, with an additional office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo.
Petz is a series of single-player video games dating back to 1995, in which the player can adopt, raise, care for and breed their own virtual pets. Developed by PF.Magic, original Petz has sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide. The series has grown to over 22 million copies as of 2011 since coming under Ubisoft.
Takara Co., Ltd. was a Japanese toy company founded in 1955. In March 2006, the company merged with Tomy Company, Ltd. to form Takara Tomy. The Takara motto was「遊びは文化」("playing is culture").
Kaneko Seisakusho (金子製作所), stylized as KANE<O, also referred to as Kaneko Co. Ltd. (カネコ株式会社), was a Japanese video game publisher founded in Suginami, Tokyo, Japan, by Hiroshi Kaneko. It published a number of games both under its brand and other companies, such as Air Buster, Nexzr, Shogun Warriors, DJ Boy, Guts'n, and the Gals Panic series.
Rocket Science Games was a video game developer and publisher that created games for consoles and personal computers from 1993 to 1997. The company released Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm, Wing Nuts: Battle in the Sky, Rocket Jockey, and Obsidian. The Space Bar was the final game developed by Rocket Science. After the company folded, it was published by SegaSoft. Six additional games were never completed.
NuTech Digital, Inc. was a company that licensed and distributed karaoke products, general entertainment films, and children's animated films. In 2005, Nutech became focused on producing and distributing live concert footage. Not to be confused with the Canadian Nutech Digital Inc. in Winnipeg,
Tigger's Honey Hunt is a platform game based on the Winnie the Pooh franchise that was released in 2000 for the Nintendo 64, PlayStation and Microsoft Windows. The game was developed by DokiDenki Studio for Disney Interactive, which published the Windows version and co-released the game on home consoles through NewKidCo in North America, while the European release was published by Ubi Soft. In 2002, the game was re-released in the UK as part of a two pack of Disney PlayStation games along with the game Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers. A spiritual successor titled Pooh and Tigger's Hunny Safari was later released, with different mini games but otherwise sharing much of the same story.
SoftQuad Software, Ltd., was a Canadian software company best known for HoTMetaL, the first commercial HTML editor. It is also known for Author/Editor, the first specialized SGML editor, and Panorama, the first browser plugin for SGML. Panorama demonstrated the need for standardization of SGML on the web, which eventually resulted in the development of the XML specification.
Andrew A. Luckey is an American animator, artist, author, designer, director, illustrator and television producer, primarily of animated works. He also writes and illustrates children's books and Bible studies.
BAM! Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game publisher based in San Jose, California, that was founded by Ray Musci in October 1999. BAM!'s partnership with Cartoon Network in 2000 led to the development of a number of licensed video games featuring Cartoon Network IPs, including The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Ed, Edd n Eddy.
There have been a variety of Sesame Street video games released for video game platforms. Most of the Sesame Street video games were published and developed by NewKidCo.
Takahashi Meijin, real name Toshiyuki Takahashi, is a former executive of Hudson Soft.
Suzak Inc. was a Japanese video game developer based in Tokyo. Suzak worked with Nintendo to create games based on their intellectual property, such as Wario: Master of Disguise and F-Zero Climax. They created numerous games for PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS.
Mattel Interactive was a video game publisher and software distributor.
The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland was published by NewKidCo for Game Boy Color and Mattel Media for Windows in 1999. This game is a platforming side scroller based on the movie of the same name.
Winnie the Pooh: Adventures in the 100 Acre Wood is an adventure game developed by NewKidCo and TOSE and published by NewKidCo and Disney Interactive. It was released in North America in March 2000 and in Japan on July 7, 2000 for the Game Boy Color.
Madeline is a series of educational point-and-click adventure video games which were developed during the mid-1990s for Windows and Mac systems. The games are an extension of the Madeline series of children's books by Ludwig Bemelmans, which describe the adventures of a young French girl. The video-game series was produced concurrently with a TV series of the same name, with characters and voice actors from the show.
Math Rabbit is a spin-off of the Reader Rabbit educational video game series. It was published by The Learning Company in 1986 for MS-DOS and Apple II. A Deluxe version was released in 1993 for MS-DOS, Mac, and Windows 3.x. In 1997, a remake was released for Windows and Mac as Reader Rabbit's Math 1. The final remake for Windows and Macintosh was published 1998 is Reader Rabbit's Math Ages 4-6, with a personalized version released in 1999.
Adventures with Barbie: Ocean Discovery is a 1997 video game developed by Gorilla Systems Corporation and published by Mattel Media for Windows. A version for the Game Boy Color developed by Realtime Associates was released in 1999, simply titled Barbie: Ocean Discovery.