155-471: Konami Group Corporation ( Japanese : コナミグループ株式会社 , Hepburn : Konami Gurūpu kabushiki-gaisha ) , commonly known as Konami , is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and publisher headquartered in Chūō , Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading cards , anime , tokusatsu , pachinko machines, slot machines , and arcade cabinets . It has casinos around
310-476: A $ 425 million loss reported in the second quarter. By mid-1984, software development for the 2600 had essentially stopped except that of Atari and Activision. Warner, wary of supporting its failing Atari division, started looking for buyers in 1984. Warner sold most of the assets of Atari's counsumer electronics and home computer divisions to Jack Tramiel , the founder of Commodore International , in July 1984 in
465-517: A mainframe computer . Therefore, development of a console had cost at least $ 100,000 (equivalent to about $ 566,000 in 2023) plus time to complete, but the final product only had about a three-month shelf life until becoming outdated by competition. By 1974, Atari had acquired Cyan Engineering , a Grass Valley electronics company founded by Steve Mayer and Larry Emmons, both former colleagues of Bushnell and Dabney from Ampex , who helped to develop new ideas for Atari's arcade games. Even prior to
620-464: A "scorched earth" approach to removing the trailer. Due to the experience, del Toro stated that he would never work on another video game. In 2015 Konami Digital Entertainment CEO Hideki Hayakawa announced that, with few exceptions, Konami would stop making console games and instead focus on the mobile gaming platform. The decision was heavily criticized by the video gaming community. Konami UK community manager Graham Day soon after pushed back against
775-690: A 2600, though companies like Epoch had distributed the 2600 in Japan previously. The 2800 was released a short time after Nintendo 's Family Computer (which became the dominant console in Japan), and it did not gain a significant share of the market. Sears previously released the 2800 in the US during late 1982 as the Sears Video Arcade II, which came packaged with two controllers and Space Invaders . Around 30 specially branded games were released for
930-500: A 50 Hz format, is limited to 8 colors, each with only a single brightness level. The first VCS bundle has two types of controllers: a joystick (part number CX10) and pair of rotary paddle controllers (CX30). Driving controllers, which are similar to paddle controllers but can be continuously rotated, shipped with the Indy 500 launch game. After less than a year, the CX10 joystick
1085-601: A November 1983 article in InfoWorld magazine. An August 1984 InfoWorld magazine article says more than 15 million Atari 2600 machines were sold by 1982. A March 1983 article in IEEE Spectrum magazine has about 3 million VCS sales in 1981, about 5.5 million in 1982, as well as a total of over 12 million VCS systems and an estimated 120 million cartridges sold. In Europe, the Atari VCS sold 125,000 units in
1240-637: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down
1395-486: A business divisional organization with the formation of various Konami Computer Entertainment (KCE) subsidiaries, starting with KCE Tokyo and KCE Osaka (later known as KCE Studios) in April 1995, followed by KCE Japan (later known as Kojima Productions ) in April 1996. Each KCE subsidiary created different intellectual properties such as KCE Tokyo's Silent Hill series and KCE Japan's Metal Gear Solid series (a revival of
1550-548: A consolidated subsidiary after Konami accepted new third-party shares issued by them. In January 2003, Avranches Automatique began handling sales of Konami's arcade games in Europe outside the U.K. and Ireland. On February 7, 2003, Betson Enterprises took over distribution and service for Konami's arcade games in the U.S. Some time later, PMT Sales started handling Konami arcade game sales in the U.K. and Ireland. In March 2006, Konami merged all their video game development divisions into
1705-552: A deal valued at $ 240 million , though Warner retained Atari's arcade business. Tramiel was a proponent of personal computers , and halted all new 2600 game development soon after the sale. The North American video game market did not recover until about 1986, after Nintendo 's 1985 launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America. Atari Corporation released a redesigned model of
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#17327717350151860-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )
2015-781: A game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man . Sears sold the system as the Tele-Games Video Arcade . Atari rebranded the VCS as the Atari 2600 in November 1982, alongside the release of the Atari 5200 . Atari was successful at creating arcade video games , but their development cost and limited lifespan drove CEO Nolan Bushnell to seek a programmable home system. The first inexpensive microprocessors from MOS Technology in late 1975 made this feasible. The console
2170-443: A game console, and offered to discuss it further at Cyan's facilities after the show. Over two days, MOS and Cyan engineers sketched out a 6502-based console design by Meyer and Milner's specifications. Financial models showed that even at $ 25 , the 6502 would be too expensive, and Peddle offered them a planned 6507 microprocessor , a cost-reduced version of the 6502, and MOS's RIOT chip for input/output . Cyan and MOS negotiated
2325-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as
2480-525: A home console. Atari sold 1.25 million Space Invaders cartridges and over 1 million VCS systems in 1980, nearly doubling the install base to over 2 million, and then an estimated 3.1 million VCS systems in 1981. By 1982, 10 million consoles had been sold in the United States, while its best-selling game was Pac-Man at over 8 million copies sold by 1990. Pac-Man propelled worldwide Atari VCS sales to 12 million units during 1982, according to
2635-486: A landfill in the New Mexico desert, later labeled the Atari video game burial . Long considered an urban legend that claimed the burial contained millions of unsold cartridges, the site was excavated in 2014, confirming reports from former Atari executives that only about 700,000 cartridges had actually been buried. Atari reported a $ 536 million loss for 1983 as a whole, and continued to lose money into 1984, with
2790-484: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it
2945-479: A living room environment". Landrum recommended it include four to five dedicated games in addition to the cartridges, but this was dropped in the final designs. The cartridge design was done by James Asher and Douglas Hardy. Hardy had been an engineer for Fairchild and helped in the initial design of the Channel F cartridges, but he quit to join Atari in 1976. The interior of the cartridge that Asher and Hardy designed
3100-675: A native controller. Third-party controllers include Wico's Command Control joystick. Later, the CX42 Remote Control Joysticks, similar in appearance but using wireless technology, were released, together with a receiver whose wires could be inserted in the controller jacks. Atari introduced the CX50 Keyboard Controller in June 1978 along with two games that require it: Codebreaker and Hunt & Score . The similar, but simpler, CX23 Kid's Controller
3255-565: A new structure to be announced at a later time. Konami affirmed this would not affect their commitment to video games and was only an internal restructuring. On 1 July 2022 Konami changed their corporate name again from Konami Holdings Corporation to Konami Group Corporation. In April 2023, Konami announced that it has opened a new studio in Osaka , Japan. The new offices, located in the Umeda Sky Building south building, will support
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#17327717350153410-658: A new subsidiary known as Konami Digital Entertainment Co. (KDE), as the parent company became a pure holding company. Their headquarters were relocated to Minato, Tokyo, in 2007. On January 20, 2009, Electrocoin became the exclusive distributor and after-sale agent of Konami's arcade games in Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa. The absorption of Hudson Soft in 2012 resulted in the addition of several other franchises including: Adventure Island , Bonk , Bloody Roar , Bomberman , Far East of Eden , and Star Soldier . In April 2015, Konami delisted itself from
3565-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),
3720-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate
3875-740: Is Winning Eleven , the spiritual sequel to International Superstar Soccer . In Japan, it is known for the popular Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū series baseball series and the Zone of the Enders games. The company had obtained the rights to Saw from Brash Entertainment when the game's production had been suspended due to financial issues. Konami is known for its password, the Konami Code , which traditionally gives many power-ups in its games. FIFA recently announced Konami as its new official esports partner. This collaboration allows FIFA to host
4030-680: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of
4185-421: Is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of
4340-512: Is Konami's Japanese video game development and publishing division founded on 31 March 2006. Before Konami Corporation had formally changed to a holding company in 2006, various forms of Konami Digital Entertainment companies had been established either as holding company or publisher. The last of the company, the Japan-based Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd., was split from Konami Corporation during
4495-609: Is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System ( Atari VCS ), it popularized microprocessor -based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges , a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers , a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and
4650-448: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,
4805-527: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing
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4960-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number
5115-701: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider
5270-466: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto
5425-600: Is commonly referred to by fans as the "Vader" model, due to its resemblance to the Star Wars character of the same name. Atari continued its OEM relationship with Sears under the latter's Tele-Games brand, which started in 1975 with the original Pong . This is unrelated to the company Telegames , which later produced 2600 cartridges. Sears released several models of the VCS as the Sears Video Arcade series starting in 1977. The final Sears-specific model
5580-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to
5735-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through
5890-411: Is interviewed by the media, the company will send that person a letter through a legal representative, in some cases indicating that Konami is willing to take them to court"; they also pressured an ex-employee into closing their new business. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by
6045-755: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey
6200-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of
6355-498: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and
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6510-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and
6665-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have
6820-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns
6975-550: The Animaniacs series, but other American productions like The Simpsons , Bucky O'Hare , G.I. Joe , X-Men , and The Goonies , and French comic Asterix all have seen release at some point in the past by Konami either on arcades and/or video game consoles. Some cinematically styled franchises from Konami are Silent Hill survival horror franchise, and the Metal Gear series. Another successful franchise
7130-614: The Silent Hill film (released in 2006) and announced that they will produce a Metal Gear Solid film . On 4 December 2020 Deadline reported that Oscar Isaac will star as Solid Snake in the adaptation, which is currently in development at Sony Pictures with Jordan Vogt-Roberts on board to direct. In 2020, Konami launched a PC gaming brand in Japan known as Arespear , which includes desktop computers, keyboards, and headsets (the last of which designed in collaboration with Konami's Bemani musicians). Silent Hills , set to be
7285-503: The FIFAe World Cup using Konami's eFootball instead of EA Sports FC . Players can now participate in qualifying matches for two tournaments scheduled for 2024: one for mobile and one for consoles. This partnership aims to enhance eFootball's visibility and attract new players, particularly those who were deterred by previous issues with the game. In 2006, Konami started producing films based on their franchises. Konami produced
7440-690: The Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and
7595-462: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in
7750-671: The Metal Gear series on MSX ). In 1997, Konami started producing rhythm games for arcades under the Bemani brand and branched off into the collectible card game business with the launch of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game . Konami was not only known for its card games, it also imported into the Pachinko business. Pachinko played a huge role in Konami's success as it started to popularize new never before seen characters. In July 2000,
7905-514: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than
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#17327717350158060-738: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of
8215-428: The call stack , and the state of the game environment. The top bezel of the console originally had six switches: power, TV type selection (color or black-and-white), game selection, left and right player difficulty, and game reset. The difficulty switches were moved to the back of the bezel in later versions of the console. The back bezel also included the controller ports, TV output, and power input. The Atari 2600
8370-806: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to
8525-527: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),
8680-471: The 2600 in 1986, supported by an ad campaign touting a price of "under 50 bucks". With a large library of cartridges and a low price point, the 2600 continued to sell into the late 1980s. Atari released the last batch of games in 1989–90 including Secret Quest and Fatal Run . By 1986, over 20 million Atari VCS units had been sold worldwide. The final Atari-licensed release is the PAL-only version of
8835-461: The 2600 was supported with new games and television commercials promoting "The fun is back!". Atari released several minor stylistic variations: the "large rainbow" (shown), "short rainbow", and an all-black version sold only in Ireland. Later European versions include a joypad. The Atari 2700 was a version of the 2600 with wireless controllers. The CX2000, with integrated joystick controllers,
8990-512: The 2600. Mattel used the M Network brand name for its cartridges. Third-party games accounted for half of VCS game sales by 1982. In addition to third-party game development, Atari also received the first major threat to its hardware dominance from the ColecoVision. Coleco had a license from Nintendo to develop a version of the arcade game Donkey Kong (1981), which was bundled with every ColecoVision console. Coleco gained about 17% of
9145-413: The 2800. Designed by engineer Joe Tilly, the 2800 has four controller ports instead of the two of the 2600. The controllers are an all-in one design using a combination of an 8-direction digital joystick and a 270-degree paddle , designed by John Amber. The 2800's case design departed from the 2600, using a wedge shape with non-protruding switches. The case style is the basis for the Atari 7800 , which
9300-542: The 6507 and RIOT chips at $ 12 a pair. MOS also introduced Cyan to Microcomputer Associates , who had separately developed debugging software and hardware for MOS, and had developed the JOLT Computer for testing the 6502, which Peddle suggested would be useful for Atari and Cyan to use while developing their system. Milner was able to demonstrate a proof-of-concept for a programmable console by implementing Tank , an arcade game by Atari's subsidiary Kee Games , on
9455-459: The 6507, the TIA, and other components, so the programmers creatively optimized their games to maximize the console. The console lacks a framebuffer and requires games to instruct the system to generate graphics in synchronization with the electron gun in the cathode-ray tube (CRT) as it scans across rows on the screen. The programmers found ways to " race the beam " to perform other functions while
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#17327717350159610-711: The CG technology and know-how it fostered from game development into animation, and it plans not only to work on Konami's own intellectual properties but in other properties as well. Its first work was a PV for Yu-Gi-Oh! 25th anniversary. Konami is headquartered in Tokyo . In the United States, Konami manages its digital/arcade/trading card game business from Hawthorne, California , and its casino gaming business from Paradise, Nevada . Its Australian gaming operations are in Sydney . As of March 2019, it owns 22 consolidated subsidiaries around
9765-535: The Extra-Terrestrial , a game programmed in about six weeks. Atari produced an estimated four million cartridges, but the game was poorly reviewed, and only about 1.5 million units were sold. Warner Communications issued revised earnings guidance in December 1982 to its shareholders, having expected a 50% year-to-year growth but now only expecting 10–15% due to declining sales at Atari. Coupled with
9920-471: The JOLT. As part of the deal, Atari wanted a second source of the chipset. Peddle and Paivinen suggested Synertek whose co-founder, Bob Schreiner, was a friend of Peddle. In October 1975, Atari informed the market that it was moving forward with MOS. The Motorola sales team had already told its management that the Atari deal was finalized, and Motorola management was livid. They announced a lawsuit against MOS
10075-486: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,
10230-516: The New York Stock Exchange following the dissolution of their Kojima Productions subsidiary. In a translated interview with Nikkei Trendy Net published in the following month, the newly appointed president of Konami's gaming division, Konami Digital Entertainment, Hideki Hayakawa, announced that Konami would shift their focus towards mobile gaming for a while, claiming that "mobile is where the future of gaming lies." The trade name of
10385-736: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently
10540-539: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand
10695-480: The Stars , the dating simulation Tokimeki Memorial series, and football simulation Pro Evolution Soccer . Konami produced its shoot 'em up arcade games such as Gradius , Life Force , Time Pilot , Gyruss , Parodius , Axelay , and TwinBee . Konami's also licenses games based on cartoons, especially Batman: The Animated Series , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , Tiny Toon Adventures , and
10850-424: The United Kingdom during 1980, and 450,000 in West Germany by 1984. In France, where the VCS released in 1982, the system sold 600,000 units by 1989. The console was distributed by Epoch Co. in Japan in 1979 under the name "Cassette TV Game", but did not sell as well as Epoch's own Cassette Vision system in 1981. In 1982, Atari launched its second programmable console, the Atari 5200 . To standardize naming,
11005-446: The VCS was made in Sunnyvale during 1977, using thick polystyrene plastic for the casing as to give the impression of weight from what was mostly an empty shell inside. The initial Sunnyvale batch had also included potential mounts for an internal speaker system on the casing, though the speakers were found to be too expensive to include and instead sound was routed through the TIA to the connected television. All six console switches on
11160-660: The VCS was renamed to the "Atari 2600 Video Computer System", or "Atari 2600", derived from the manufacture part number CX2600. By 1982, the 2600 cost Atari about $ 40 to make and was sold for an average of $ 125 (equivalent to $ 390 in 2023). The company spent $ 4 .50 to $ 6 to manufacture each cartridge, plus $ 1 to $ 2 for advertising, wholesaling for $ 18.95 (equivalent to $ 60 in 2023). Activision , formed by Crane, Whitehead, and Miller in 1979, started developing third-party VCS games using their knowledge of VCS design and programming tricks, and began releasing games in 1980. Kaboom! (1981) and Pitfall! (1982) are among
11315-439: The VCS would render the console obsolete. However, the board stayed committed to the VCS and ignored Bushnell's advice, leading to his departure from Atari in 1979. Atari sold about 600,000 VCS systems in 1979, bringing the installed base to a little over 1.3 million. Atari obtained a license from Taito to develop a VCS conversion of its 1978 arcade hit Space Invaders . This is the first officially licensed arcade conversion for
11470-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which
11625-469: The arcade game KLAX in 1990. After more than 14 years on the market, 2600 production ended in 1992, along with the Atari 7800 and Atari 8-bit computers . In Europe, last stocks of the 2600 were sold until Summer/Fall of 1995. The Atari 2600's CPU is the MOS Technology 6507 , a version of the 6502 , running at 1.19 MHz in the 2600. Though their internal silicon was identical, the 6507
11780-440: The arcade game Pac-Man and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial . Pac-Man became the 2600's highest-selling game, but was panned for being inferior to the arcade version. E.T. was rushed to market for the holiday shopping season and was similarly disparaged. Both games, and a glut of third-party shovelware , were factors in ending Atari's relevance in the console market, contributing to the video game crash of 1983 . Warner sold
11935-463: The arcades, such as Gradius , Castlevania , TwinBee , Ganbare Goemon , Contra , and Metal Gear , in addition to success with hit licensed games such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ( TMNT ). Due to the success of their arcade and NES games, Konami's earnings grew from $ 10 million in 1987 to $ 300 million in 1991. The first TMNT arcade game (1989) was Konami's highest-grossing arcade game. In June 1991, Konami's legal name
12090-476: The assets of Atari's consumer electronics division to former Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel in 1984; in 1986 the new Atari Corporation under Tramiel released a revised, low-cost 2600 model, and the backward-compatible Atari 7800 , but it was Nintendo that led the recovery of the industry with its 1985 launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System . Production of the Atari 2600 ended in 1992, with an estimated 30 million units sold across its lifetime. Atari, Inc.
12245-453: The assets of former game developer Hudson Soft , known for Bomberman , Adventure Island , Bonk , Bloody Roar , and Star Soldier . Konami is the nineteenth-largest game company in the world by revenue. Konami also publishes the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game , one of the best-selling TCG in history. The company was founded on 21 March 1969 and was officially incorporated under
12400-473: The award in Kojima's stead, a choir sang "Quiet's Theme" from The Phantom Pain as a tribute to the absent Kojima. Kojima left Konami several days afterwards, re-opening Kojima Productions as an independent company. In August 2015, The Nikkei criticized Konami for its unethical treatment of employees. In June 2017, The Nikkei further reported on Konami's continued clashes with Kojima Productions, preventing
12555-525: The basis for the Magnavox Odyssey . In mid-1976, Fairchild announced the Channel F, planned for release later that year, beating Atari to the market. By October 1976, Warner and Atari agreed to the purchase of Atari for $ 28 million . Warner provided an estimated $ 120 million which was enough to fast-track Stella. By 1977, development had advanced enough to brand it the "Atari Video Computer System" (VCS) and start developing games. The unit
12710-553: The black areas around the screen to extend the game code's processing time. Regional releases of the Atari 2600 use modified TIA chips for each region's television formats, which require games to be developed and published separately for each region. All modes are 160 pixels wide. NTSC mode provides 192 visible lines per screen, drawn at 60 Hz , with 16 colors, each at 8 levels of brightness. PAL mode provides more vertical scanlines, with 228 visible lines per screen, but drawn at 50 Hz and only 13 colors. SECAM mode, also
12865-439: The code to the screen on the part of the programmer was labeled " racing the beam "; the actual game logic runs when the television beam is outside of the visible area of the screen. Early games for the system use the same visuals for pairs of scan lines, giving a lower vertical resolution, to allow more time for the next row of graphics to be prepared. Later games, such as Pitfall! , change the visuals for each scan line or extend
13020-449: The company was changed from Konami Corporation to Konami Holdings Corporation during the same month. Konami consolidated its productions teams established in 2004 into their headquarters, including Pawapuro Production, BEMANI Production, Virtual Kiss Production, Loveplus Production, Kojima Productions and others, that year. In 2017, Konami announced that they would be reviving some of the company's other well-known video game titles following
13175-454: The company's legal English name was changed to Konami Corporation, but the Japanese legal name remained the same. As the company transitioned into developing video games for the sixth-generation consoles, they branched out into the health and fitness business acquiring People Co., Ltd and Daiei Olympic Sports Club, Inc. which became Konami subsidiaries. In August 2001, the company invested in another video game publisher, Hudson Soft , which became
13330-486: The delay in shipping the units and consumers' unfamiliarity with a swappable-cartridge console that is not dedicated to only one game. In 1978, Atari sold only 550,000 of the 800,000 systems manufactured. This required further financial support from Warner to cover losses. Bushnell pushed the Warner Board of Directors to start working on "Stella 2", as he grew concerned that rising competition and aging tech specs of
13485-424: The developer in its efforts both grow and endure over the coming decades. Konami suggested that the new building would be a core entity in the studio's current and future projects, noting that it hopes Konami Osaka will encourage "sustainable growth" over the next 50 years. In February 2024, Konami Digital Entertainment announced the establishment of its own anime studio called Konami Animation. The studio will invest
13640-578: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there
13795-571: The electron gun scans outside of the visible screen. Alongside the electronics development, Bushnell brought in Gene Landrum, a consultant who had just prior consulted for Fairchild Camera and Instrument for its upcoming Channel F , to determine the consumer requirements for the console. In his final report, Landrum suggested a living room aesthetic, with a wood grain finish, and the cartridges must be "idiot proof, child proof and effective in resisting potential static [electricity] problems in
13950-582: The end of the year. By 1975, Atari had released a Pong home console , competing against Magnavox , the only other major producer of home consoles at the time. Atari engineers recognized, however, the limitation of custom logic integrated onto the circuit board, permanently confining the whole console to only one game. The increasing competition increased the risk, as Atari had found with past arcade games and again with dedicated home consoles. Both platforms are built from integrating discrete electro-mechanical components into circuits, rather than programmed as on
14105-455: The flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure
14260-438: The front and replacing the previous all lowercase font for the switch labels to fully capitalized wording. Otherwise, these four-switch consoles look nearly identical to the earlier six-switch models. In 1982, to coincide with the release of the Atari 5200, Atari rebranded the console as the "Atari 2600", a name first used on a version of the four-switch model without woodgrain, giving it an all-black appearance. This all-black model
14415-428: The front panel. Production of the unit was moved to Taiwan in 1978, where a less thick internal metal shielding was used and thinner plastic was used for the casing, reducing the system's weight. These two versions are commonly referred to as "Heavy Sixers" and "Light Sixers" respectively, referencing the six front switches. In 1980, the difficulty switches were moved to the back of the console, leaving four switches on
14570-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had
14725-446: The hardware market in 1982 compared to Atari's 58%. With third parties competing for market share, Atari worked to maintain dominance in the market by acquiring licenses for popular arcade games and other properties to make games from. Pac-Man has numerous technical and aesthetic flaws, but nevertheless more than 7 million copies were sold. Heading into the 1982 holiday shopping season, Atari had placed high sales expectations on E.T.
14880-821: The holding company restructuring process. Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya, Inc. (KCEN), founded on 1 October 1996, was dissolved along with Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe, Inc. (KCEK) in December 2002. On 16 December 2004, Konami Corporation announced Konami Online, Inc., Konami Computer Entertainment Studios, Inc., Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, Inc. and Konami Computer Entertainment Japan, Inc. would merge into Konami Corporation, effective on 1 March 2005. On 22 February 2005, Konami Corporation announced Konami Music Entertainment, Inc. would merge into Konami Corporation, effective on 1 March 2005. On 11 March 2005, Konami Corporation announced Konami Traumer, Inc would be merged back into Konami Corporation, effective on 1 June 2005. On 5 January 2006, Konami Corporation announced
15035-430: The language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853,
15190-458: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system
15345-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of
15500-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,
15655-522: The licensing model that continues to be used by console manufacturers for game development. Activision's success led to the establishment of other third-party VCS game developers following Activision's model in the early 1980s, including U.S. Games , Telesys , Games by Apollo , Data Age , Zimag , Mystique , and CommaVid . The founding of Imagic included ex-Atari programmers. Mattel and Coleco, each already producing its own more advanced console, created simplified versions of their existing games for
15810-643: The merger of Konami Sports Corporation merged with its parent company, Konami Sports Life Corporation. The parent would be dissolved under the merger, and Konami Sports would become the wholly owned subsidiary of Konami Corporation after share exchange between KC and KS. After the share exchange, KS would be renamed Konami Sports & Life Co., Ltd. On 28 February 2006, Konami Sports Corporation merged with its parent company, Konami Sports Life Corporation, and became Konami Sports Corporation. On 21 September 2010, Konami Corporation announced it has signed an agreement to acquire with Abilit Corporation via share exchange. After
15965-462: The most successful with at least one and four million copies sold, respectively. In 1980, Atari attempted to block the sale of the Activision cartridges, accusing the four of intellectual property infringement. The two companies settled out of court, with Activision agreeing to pay Atari a licensing fee for their games. This made Activision the first third-party video game developer and established
16120-568: The name Konami Industry Co., Ltd. ( コナミ工業株式会社 , Konami Kōgyō kabushiki gaisha ) on 19 March 1973. The company's founder and chairman, Kagemasa Kōzuki (also known as Kaz Kozuki), ran a jukebox rental and repair business in Toyonaka , Osaka, before transforming the business into a manufacturer of amusement machines for video arcades. The name Konami is a portmanteau of the names of three founding members: Kagemasa Kōzuki, Yoshinobu Nakama, and Tatsuo Miyasako. Their first coin-operated video game
16275-430: The next week. By December 1975, Atari hired Joe Decuir , a recent graduate from University of California, Berkeley who had been doing his own testing on the 6502. Decuir began debugging the first prototype designed by Mayer and Milner, which gained the codename "Stella" after the brand of Decuir's bicycle. This prototype included a breadboard -level design of the graphics interface to build upon. A second prototype
16430-485: The ninth installment of the Silent Hill video game series, was abruptly cancelled in April 2015 without explanation despite the critical acclaim and success of P.T. , a playable teaser. Hours after the announcement, Konami delisted itself from the New York Stock Exchange. Game co-director and writer Guillermo del Toro publicly criticized the cancellation as not making any sense and questioned what he described as
16585-418: The now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered
16740-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by
16895-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with
17050-431: The oversaturated home game market, Atari's weakened position led investors to start pulling funds out of video games, beginning a cascade of disastrous effects known as the video game crash of 1983 . Many of the third-party developers formed prior to 1983 were closed, and Mattel and Coleco left the video game market by 1985. In September 1983, Atari sent 14 truckloads of unsold Atari 2600 cartridges and other equipment to
17205-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,
17360-481: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as
17515-402: The release of the home version of Pong , Cyan's engineers, led by Mayer and Ron Milner, had envisioned a home console powered by new programmable microprocessors capable of playing Atari's current arcade offerings. The programmable microprocessors would make a console's design significantly simpler and more powerful than any dedicated single-game unit. However, the cost $ 100–300 of such chips
17670-551: The reporting that Konami would cease AAA game production, stating that he believed the root of the problem to be either a mistranslation or a misinterpretation of Hayakawa's remarks. On 3 March 2015, Konami announced they would be shifting focus away from individual studios, notably Kojima Productions. Internal sources claimed the restructure was due to a clash between Hideo Kojima and Konami. References to Kojima were soon stripped from marketing material, and Kojima's position as an executive vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment
17825-477: The same colors as the players; and a 1-pixel ball , which shares the background color. The 1-bit sprites all can be controlled to stretch to 1, 2, 4, or 8 pixels. The system was designed without a frame buffer to avoid the cost of the associated RAM . The background and sprites apply to a single scan line , and as the display is output to the television, the program can change colors, sprite positions, and background settings. The careful timing required to sync
17980-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning
18135-451: The scale it needed, and began considering a sale to a larger firm by early 1976. Atari was introduced to Warner Communications , which saw the potential for the growing video game industry to help offset declining profits from its film and music divisions. Negotiations took place during 1976, during which Atari cleared itself of liabilities, including settling a patent infringement lawsuit with Magnavox over Ralph H. Baer 's patents that were
18290-439: The speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )
18445-817: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this
18600-401: The storage size of the launch games with significantly more advanced visuals and gameplay than the system was designed for, such as Activision's Pitfall! . By 1982, the Atari 2600 was the dominant game system in North America. Poor decisions by Atari management damaged both the system and company's reputation, most notably the release of two highly anticipated games for the 2600: a port of
18755-481: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This
18910-468: The studio's application for health insurance, as well as Konami's actions in making it difficult for former employees to get future jobs; they are notably forbidden from mentioning their work with Konami on their résumés . Konami also started filing complaints against other game companies that hired ex-Konami employees, leading to an unspecified major game company warning its staff against doing so. A former employee of Konami stated: "If an ex-[Konami employee]
19065-492: The success of their Nintendo Switch launch title Super Bomberman R . In early 2020, Konami moved their headquarters to the Ginza district of Tokyo, which includes a facility for holding esports events as well as a school for esports players. Konami announced a major restructuring of Konami Digital Entertainment on 25 January 2021, which including the dissolution of its Product Divisions 1, 2, and 3 to be reconsolidated into
19220-562: The surviving company, effective on 1 April 2007. Major titles by Konami include the action Castlevania series, the survival horror Silent Hill series, the action shooter Contra series, the platform adventure Ganbare Goemon series, the stealth action Metal Gear series, the role-playing Suikoden series, the Bemani rhythm game series (which includes Dance Dance Revolution , Beatmania IIDX , GuitarFreaks , DrumMania , and Pop'n Music , among others), Dancing with
19375-534: The television's antenna. Atari developed the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) chip in the VCS to handle the graphics and conversion to a television signal. It provides a single-color, 20-bit background register that covers the left half of the screen (each bit represents 4 adjacent pixels) and is either repeated or reflected on the right side. There are 5 single-color sprites : two 8-pixel wide players ; two 1 bit missiles , which share
19530-548: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Atari 2600 The Atari 2600
19685-626: The transaction, Abilit Corporation became a wholly owned subsidiary of Konami Corporation, effective 1 January 2011. On 1 January 2011, Abilit Corporation was renamed to Takasago Electric Industry Co., Ltd. As part of the acquisition, Biz Share Corporation also became a subsidiary of Konami Corporation. On 2 October 2006, Konami Corporation announced it had completed the acquisition of mobile phone content developer Megacyber Corporation. On 6 February 2007, Konami Corporation announced Megacyber Corporation to be merged into Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd., with Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. being
19840-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,
19995-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of
20150-480: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It
20305-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending
20460-548: The world, and operates health and physical fitness clubs across Japan. The company originated in 1969 as a jukebox rental and repair business in Toyonaka , Osaka, Japan, by Kagemasa Kōzuki , who remains the company's chairman. Konami's video game franchises include Metal Gear , Silent Hill , Castlevania , Contra , Frogger , Tokimeki Memorial , Parodius , Gradius , Yu-Gi-Oh! , Suikoden , and eFootball . Additionally, Konami owns Bemani , known for Dance Dance Revolution and Beatmania , as well as
20615-498: The world. On 7 November 2005, Konami Corporation announced restructuring Konami Corporation into a holding company, by moving its Japanese Digital Entertainment Business segment under Konami Corporation. The Digital Entertainment Business became Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. The newly established Konami Corporation was expected to begin operation on 31 March 2006. Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. ( 株式会社コナミデジタルエンタテインメント , Kabushiki-gaisha Konami Dejitaru Entateinmento )
20770-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or
20925-539: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular
21080-650: Was changed to Konami Co., Ltd. ( コナミ株式会社 , Konami kabushiki gaisha ) and their headquarters were relocated to Minato, Tokyo , in April 1993. The company started supporting the 16-bit video game consoles during this period, starting with the Super NES in 1990, followed by the PC Engine in 1991, and the Sega Genesis in 1992. After the launch of the Sega Saturn and PlayStation in 1994, Konami became
21235-532: Was cheaper than the 6502 because its package included fewer memory-address pins—13 instead of 16. The designers of the Atari 2600 selected an inexpensive cartridge interface that has one fewer address pins than the 13 allowed by the 6507, further reducing the already limited addressable memory from 8 KB (2 = 8,192) to 4 KB (2 = 4,096). This was believed to be sufficient as Combat was only 2 KB. Later games circumvented this limitation with bank switching . The console has 128 bytes of RAM for scratch space,
21390-405: Was completed by March 1976 with the help of Jay Miner , who created a chip called the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) to send graphics and audio to a television. The second prototype included a TIA, a 6507, and a ROM cartridge slot and adapter. As the TIA's design was refined, Al Alcorn brought in Atari's game developers to provide input on features. There are significant limitations in
21545-513: Was complicated by the use of cartridges. The Atari VCS was launched in September 1977 at $ 199 (equivalent to about $ 1,000 in 2023), with two joysticks and a Combat cartridge; eight additional games were sold separately. Most of the launch games were based on arcade games developed by Atari or its subsidiary Kee Games : for example, Combat was based on Kee's Tank (1974) and Atari's Jet Fighter (1975). Atari sold between 350,000 and 400,000 Atari VCS units during 1977, attributed to
21700-404: Was designed to be compatible with the cathode-ray tube television sets produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which commonly lack auxiliary video inputs to receive audio and video from another device. Therefore, to connect to a TV, the console generates a radio frequency signal compatible with the regional television standards ( NTSC , PAL , or SECAM ), using a special switch box to act as
21855-482: Was during this period that Konami began expanding their video game business into the home consumer market following a brief stint releasing video games for the Atari 2600 in 1982 for the U.S. market. The company released numerous games for the MSX home computer standard in 1983, followed by the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. Numerous Konami franchises were established during this period on both platforms, as well as
22010-516: Was far outside the range that their market would tolerate. Atari had opened negotiations to use Motorola's new 6800 in future systems. In September 1975, MOS Technology debuted the 6502 microprocessor for $ 25 at the Wescon trade show in San Francisco. Mayer and Milner attended, and met with the leader of the team that created the chip, Chuck Peddle . They proposed using the 6502 in
22165-421: Was founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1972. Its first major product was Pong , released in 1972, the first successful coin-operated video game . While Atari continued to develop new arcade games in following years, Pong gave rise to a number of competitors to the growing arcade game market. The competition along with other missteps by Atari led to financial problems in 1974, though recovering by
22320-735: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,
22475-474: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )
22630-466: Was prototyped under the codename Stella by Atari subsidiary Cyan Engineering . Lacking funding to complete the project, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications in 1976. The Atari VCS launched in 1977 with nine games on 2 KB cartridges. Atari ported many of their arcade games to the system, and the VCS versions of Breakout and Night Driver are in color while the arcade originals have monochrome graphics. The system's first killer application
22785-562: Was redesigned for the 7800 by Barney Huang. The cost-reduced 1986 model, sometimes referred to as the "2600 Jr.", has a smaller form factor with an Atari 7800 -like appearance. It was advertised as a budget gaming system (under $ 50 ) with the ability to run a large collection of games. Released after the video game crash of 1983, and after the North American launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System ,
22940-1043: Was released in 1978, and they began exporting products to the United States the following year. Konami began to achieve success with arcade games in the early 1980s, starting with Scramble (1981), followed by hits such as Frogger (1981), Super Cobra (1981), Time Pilot (1982), Roc'n Rope (1983), Track & Field (1983), and Yie Ar Kung-Fu (1985). Many of their early games were licensed to other companies for US release, including Centuri , Stern Electronics , Sega , and Gremlin Industries . They established their U.S. subsidiary, Konami Inc. (later Konami of America Inc., and Konami Digital Entertainment Inc.), in November 1982; initially based in Torrance, California , they would later move to Buffalo Grove, Illinois , in 1984 following their acquisition of arcade distributor Interlogic, Inc., with Interlogic founder and president Ben Harel serving as president of Konami Inc. It
23095-539: Was released later for a series of games aimed at a younger audience. The CX22 Trak-Ball controller was announced in January 1983 and is compatible with the Atari 8-bit computers. There were two attempts to turn the Atari 2600 into a keyboard-equipped home computer : Atari's never-released CX3000 "Graduate" keyboard, and the CompuMate keyboard by Spectravideo which was released in 1983. The initial production of
23250-459: Was removed from the company's official listing of executives. Later that year, Konami's legal department barred Kojima from accepting the award for Best Action-Adventure for his work on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain at The Game Awards 2015 . When announced during the event, the audience booed in disapproval of Konami's actions. Host Geoff Keighley expressed his disappointment in Konami's actions. After actor Kiefer Sutherland accepted
23405-525: Was replaced with the CX40 model designed by James C. Asher. Because the Atari joystick port and CX40 joystick became industry standards, 2600 joysticks and some other peripherals work with later systems, including the MSX , Commodore 64 , Amiga , Atari 8-bit computers , and Atari ST . The CX40 joystick can be used with the Master System and Sega Genesis , but does not provide all the buttons of
23560-642: Was showcased on June 4, 1977, at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show with plans for retail release in October. The announcement was purportedly delayed to wait out the terms of the Magnavox patent lawsuit settlement, which would have given Magnavox all technical information on any of Atari's products announced between June 1, 1976, and June 1, 1977. However, Atari encountered production problems during its first batch, and its testing
23715-443: Was sufficiently different to avoid patent conflicts, but the exterior components were directly influenced by the Channel F to help work around the static electricity concerns. Atari was still recovering from its 1974 financial woes and needed additional capital to fully enter the home console market, though Bushnell was wary of being beholden to outside financial sources.> Atari obtained smaller investments through 1975, but not at
23870-481: Was the Video Arcade II, released during the fall of 1982. Sears released versions of Atari's games with Tele-Games branding, usually with different titles. Three games were produced by Atari for Sears as exclusive releases: Steeplechase , Stellar Track , and Submarine Commander . The Atari 2800 is the Japanese version of the 2600 released in October 1983. It is the first Japan-specific release of
24025-500: Was the home conversion of Taito 's arcade game Space Invaders in 1980. Adventure , also released in 1980, was one of the first action-adventure video games and contains the first widely recognized Easter egg . The popularity of the VCS led to the founding of Activision and other third-party game developers and competition from the Intellivision and, later, ColecoVision consoles. Games grew to use four or more times
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