Namco Article

History of Namco

Namco was founded in Tokyo in 1955 under the name Nakamura Manufacturing Ltd. It originally created mechanical rocking-horses that were installed in department stores in Japan.

In the early 1970's Namco shortened their name to their present title and acquired the Japanese division of Atari. This introduced Namco to the arcade machine business and their first game, Gee Bee, was released a few years later. Pac-Man, the famous pellet-muncher, was released in 1980 and is now the company's official mascot.

Making history in 1987, Namco released the racing game Final Lap. The game was the first to utilize multi-player competitive gaming on a multi-cabinet system.

Namco also popularized 3D head-to-head fighting games with the 1994 release of Tekken. The game featured the famed fighting formula found in many previous games but took place in a 3D arena. Soul Calibur eventually grew from this formula and secured Namco's fame for fighting games.

Namco and Nintendo

In early 2000, Namco began work on several titles using Nintendo's franchise names. These Namco-developed games include Mario Superstar Baseball, Star Fox Assault and the Donkey Konga games. Each game was developed with close supervision of Nintendo.

Popular Games

• Ace Combat 1-5 - Series of combat games featuring authentic military weaponry and vehicles.
• Baten Kaitos - Card-battle role playing game for the GameCube.
• Dig Dug
• Donkey Konga 1-3 (developer only) - Series of rhythm games for the Nintendo GameCube with the unique input device of bongos.
• Galaga
• Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari! - Quirky and wacky puzzle games where you play the Prince of the Universe who must roll objects onto the sticky katamari ball.
• Klonoa
• Mario Superstar Baseball (developer only)
• Mr. Driller - Puzzle game featuring a small man with a drill tunneling down through colored bricks.
• Pac-Man (including Pac-Land, Pac-Mania, Pac 'N Roll, Pac-Man World,Pac-Pix and more)
• Ridge Racer
• Soul Calibur 1-3
• Star Fox: Assault (developer)
• "Tales" Series (such as Tales of Destiny, Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Symphonia)
• Tekken Series - Early 3D fighting games that popularized the use of 3D environments.
• Xenosaga - A role-playing game.