Nippon Ichi Software, Inc. is a Japanese video game developer and publisher. The company was founded in 1991 and has developed several role-playing video games, most notably the Disgaea and Marl Kingdom series. Its mascot is the penguin-like Disgaea character Prinny.
Inti Creates Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game development company. Formed by ex-Capcom staff in May 1996, they are best known for developing games in the Mega Man series, namely the Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX series, and their flagship Azure Striker Gunvolt and Gal Gun franchises.
Arcana Heart 3 is a 2011 2D arcade fighting game developed by Team Arcana and published by Arc System Works. It is the third entry in the Arcana Heart series, following the events of Arcana Heart 2.
Playism is a Japanese independent video game publisher operated by Active Gaming Media. Playism started as a digital distribution platform for PC games in May 2011.
Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel is a fighting game developed by Examu's Team Arcana and published by Nitroplus. The game crosses over heroines from various visual novels and games released by Nitroplus, as well as those from manga and anime series that Nitroplus writers have been involved with. The game was released in arcades on April 30, 2015 and was released on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in collaboration with Marvelous Entertainment's Marvelous Inc. on December 10, 2015. Marvelous USA published the game in North America on February 2, 2016. It was later released on Windows on December 8, 2016. The game originates from the doujin game Nitro+ Royale: Heroines Duel, which is stated as its predecessor.
Examu, formerly known as Yuki Enterprise, was a Japanese video game company founded in 2000. It mostly produced fighting games for arcades and home consoles. It is known for owning Team Arcana, the developer of the original intellectual property series Arcana Heart. Initially, they developed games for their own arcade system board called eX-Board, to release their games mostly on Taito's NESiCAxLive arcade delivery system. Support for eX-Board ceased in December, 2013. At the end of February 2020, Examu suspended their business operations. Any ongoing development works and product supports has since migrated to its rebranded successor since 2019, Team Arcana.
Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game development and localization company specializing in role-playing video games, visual novels and adventure games. The company was founded in 1984 as Chunsoft Co., Ltd. and merged with Spike in 2012. It is owned by Dwango.
SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy is a fighting game developed for PS4 by SNK and for Nintendo Switch and PC by Abstraction Games. The game was released for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in September 2018 and was published in Japan and Asia by SNK and SEGA and in International version by NIS America. An arcade version was released the following October and the Microsoft Windows version arrived in February 2019. It is a spiritual successor to SNK Gals' Fighters and features a 2v2 tag-team gameplay system, which was also used in Kizuna Encounter: Super Tag Battle.
Million Arthur is a Japanese media franchise created by Square Enix, consisting primarily of a series of video games. The first release was an online free-to-play card battle game titled Kaku-San-Sei Million Arthur, which was released for iOS and Android in 2012. A sequel game titled Kai-Ri-Sei Million Arthur was released in Japan in November 2014.
Samurai Shodown is a 2019 fighting game developed and published by SNK for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Stadia, Xbox Series X and Series S, Android and iOS via Netflix Games, and Windows as an entry in the Samurai Shodown series, as well as a reboot to the series. An arcade version was released by Taito.
Too Kyo Games, LLC is a Japanese video game developer founded by ex-employees of Spike Chunsoft. It was formed in 2017 by Danganronpa series creator Kazutaka Kodaka, Zero Escape series creator Kotaro Uchikoshi, composer Masafumi Takada, and artist Rui Komatsuzaki. The company is working on several games, and collaborated with Pierrot on the 2020 anime series Akudama Drive.
In the video game industry, 2021 saw the release of many new titles. The numerous delays in software and hardware releases due to the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacted development schedules, leading to several games being delayed into 2022 or even postponed indefinitely. Additionally, computer and console hardware were impacted by the combined effects of a semiconductor shortage and a rising growth of bitcoin mining that strained the supply of critical components.
In the video game industry, 2022 saw the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the industry, slowing hardware sales for most of the year as well as development delays for major titles. The industry continued its trend of acquisitions and mergers, highlighted by Microsoft announcing its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion. The industry as a whole continued to deal with issues such as workplace harassment and discrimination, alongside crunch periods, leading to at least the quality assurance staff at three separate studios to vote to unionize.
In the video game industry, 2023 saw significant changes within larger publishers and developers. Microsoft, after having satisfied worldwide regulatory bodies, completed its US$69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, making them the third largest game publisher in the world. Embracer Group, which had been in an acquisition spree over the previous few years, had an estimated $2 billion deal fall through, causing many of the studios under Embracer to either lay off staff or close entirely. Similar layoffs were seen at Unity, Amazon, ByteDance, Epic Games, Bungie, and Ubisoft, leading to over 9,000 jobs lost in the industry in 2023 and part of a larger trend of layoffs at technology companies in 2023.
In the video game industry, 2025 is expected to see the release of many new video games.
