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69-527: [REDACTED] Look up nbp in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. NBP can stand for: Acronyms [ edit ] Namco Bandai Partners Name Binding Protocol Nathaniel B. Palmer (icebreaker) National Balancing Point (UK) NBP F.C. (National Bank of Pakistan football club) National Bank of Pakistan Narodowy Bank Polski ( National Bank of Poland ) National Battlefield Park ,

138-520: A multi-million-selling franchise as a result. The company continued expanding its operations overseas, such as the acquisition of Bally's Aladdin's Castle, Inc., the owners of the Aladdin's Castle chain of mall arcades. In December, Namco acquired Nikkatsu , Japan's oldest-surviving film studio that at the time was undergoing bankruptcy procedures. The purchase allowed Nikkatsu to utilize Namco's computer graphics hardware for its films, while Namco

207-474: A Nintendo third-party licensee, instead relying on publishers such as Bandai to release its games in North America. In Japan, Namco developed two theme park attractions, which were demonstrated at the 1990 International Garden and Greenery Exposition ( Expo '90 ): Galaxian3: Project Dragoon , a 3D rail shooter that supported 28 players, and a dark ride based on The Tower of Druaga . As part of

276-540: A cohesive world made it an astounding success in Japan, recording record-breaking sales figures that had not been seen since Space Invaders . The game's success led to merchandise, tournament play, and the first video game soundtrack album. The same year, Namco released Mappy , an early side-scrolling platformer, and the Pole Position sequel Pole Position II . Endō went on to design The Tower of Druaga

345-553: A conversion of Ridge Racer , its most-popular arcade game at the time. The PlayStation was released in Japan on December 3, 1994, with Ridge Racer as one of its first titles. Sony moved 100,000 units on launch day alone; publications attributed Ridge Racer to the PlayStation's early success, giving it an edge over its competitor, the Sega Saturn . For a time, it was the best-selling PlayStation game in Japan. Namcot

414-399: A cross-publishing relationship that can be traced back to the very origins of Namco, and Atari's liquidation of regional assets was a natural opportunity for Namco Bandai to gain a PAL distribution network. On September 9, 2008, Infogrames and Namco Bandai Games Europe announced a new joint-venture known as Distribution Partners. The distribution arms of both businesses were regrouped into

483-445: A few non-video arcade games itself, such as Shoot Away (1977). As the video game industry prospered in Japan during the 1970s with the release of Taito's Space Invaders , Namco turned its attention towards making its own video games. While its licensed Atari games were still profitable, sales were decreasing and the quality of the hardware used began deteriorating. Per the recommendation of company engineer Shigekazu Ishimura,

552-421: A file extension of Mathematica See also [ edit ] [REDACTED] Search for "nbp" on Misplaced Pages. All pages with titles beginning with NBP All pages with titles containing NBP Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title NBP . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

621-408: A fixture in popular culture, spawning a multi-million-selling media franchise. Namco regularly released several successful games throughout the early 1980s. It published Galaga , the follow-up to Galaxian , in 1981 to critical acclaim, usurping its predecessor in popularity with its fast-paced action and power-ups. 1982 saw the release of Pole Position , a racing game that is the first to use

690-563: A larger scale. In 1988, Namco became involved in film production when it distributed the film Mirai Ninja in theaters, with a tie-in video game coinciding with its release. Namco also developed the beat 'em up Splatterhouse , which attracted attention for its fixture on gore and dismemberment, and Gator Panic , a derivative of Whack-a-Mole that became a mainstay in Japanese arcades and entertainment centers. In early 1989, Namco unveiled its System 21 arcade system, one of

759-464: A minority stake in the company and Nakamura retained his position as its board chairman until the middle of 1988. In Japan, Namco continued to see expeditious growth. It published Pro Baseball: Family Stadium for the Famicom, which was critically acclaimed and sold over 2.5 million copies. Its sequel, Pro Baseball: Family Stadium '87 , sold an additional two million. In 1986, Namco entered

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828-491: A production plant in February 1966, moving its corporate office to a four-story building in Ōta, Tokyo . The company secured a deal with Walt Disney Productions to produce children's rides in the likenesses of its characters, in addition to those using popular anime characters like Q-Taro ; this move allowed the business to further expand its operations and become a driving force in the Japanese coin-op market. Though

897-961: A protected area in the United States National Bolshevik Party National broadband plan Neutral body posture Network Bootstrap Program New Bilibid Prison New Black Panthers New Blue Party of Ontario NicerBooks! Publishing , an imprint of VDM Publishing Nobilis Patricius Bruxellensis: a descendant of the Seven noble houses of Brussels with a title of nobility. Nonparametric belief propagation Northern Black Polished Ware Normal blood pressure Normal boiling point NVIDIA Business Platform Other [ edit ] Nnam language (ISO 639 language code nbp ) Nibhapur railway station (train station code NBP ); see List of railway stations in India .NBP ,

966-535: A racing game, in 1993. Ridge Racer usage of 3D textured polygons and drifting made it a popular title in arcades and one of Namco's most-successful releases, and is labeled a milestone in 3D computer graphics. The company followed its success with Tekken , a 3D fighting game, a year later. Designed by Seiichi Ishii , the co-creator of Sega's landmark fighting game Virtua Fighter , Tekken ' s wide array of playable characters and consistent framerate helped it outperform Sega's game in popularity, and launched

1035-470: A real racetrack (the Fuji Speedway ) and helped laydown the foundations for the racing genre. It released Dig Dug the same year, a maze chaser that allowed players to create their own mazes. Namco's biggest post- Pac-Man success was the vertical-scrolling shooter Xevious in 1983, designed by new-hire Masanobu Endō . Xevious ' s early usage of pre-rendered visuals, boss fights, and

1104-462: A robot named Putan that solved pre-built mazes. In August 1973, American game company Atari began establishing a series of divisions in Asia, one of which was named Atari Japan. Its president, Kenichi Takumi, approached Nakamura in early 1974 to have his business become the distributor of Atari games across Japan. Nakamura, already planning global expansion following his company's success, agreed to

1173-663: A standalone entity with exclusive physical packaged-goods distribution rights for video games produced by Namco Bandai and Infogrames within Infogrames European and Asian territories. Along the way, Namco Bandai's parent company acquired a 34% stake in Atari's European and Asian businesses. The acquisitions came on the heels of Infogrames and Atari's financial difficulties, which had begun to snowball in 2006. The venture would trade worldwide, excluding North America and Japan. On March 25, 2009, Atari announced they would leave

1242-535: A vital role in the console's mainstream success. Sony recognized Namco's commitment to the console, leading to Namco receiving special treatment from Sony and early promotional material adopting the tagline "PlayStation: Powered by Namco". Namco was also given the rights to produce controllers, such as the NeGcon , which it designed with the knowledge it gained through developing its cancelled console. Though it had signed contracts to produce games for systems such as

1311-590: A year later, a maze game that helped establish the concept for the action role-playing game . Druaga ' s design influenced games such as Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda . 1984 also saw the release of Pac-Land , a Pac-Man -themed platform game that paved the way for similar games such as Super Mario Bros. , and Gaplus , a moderately successful update to Galaga . The success of Namco's arcade games prompted it to launch its own print publication, Namco Community Magazine NG , to allow its fans to connect with developers. In July 1983, Nintendo released

1380-592: A year later. Among Namco's first major hits was the fixed shooter Galaxian in 1979. It was followed by Pac-Man in 1980. Namco prospered during the golden age of arcade video games in the early 1980s, releasing popular titles such as Galaga , Xevious , and Pole Position . Namco entered the home market in 1984 with conversions of its arcade games for the MSX and the Nintendo Family Computer , later expanding to competing platforms, such as

1449-505: The Family Computer , a video game console that utilized interchangeable cartridges to play games. The console's launch came with ports of some of Nintendo's popular arcade games, like Donkey Kong , which at the time were considered high quality. Though Namco recognized the system's potential to allow consumers to play accurate versions of its games, the company chose to hold off on the idea after its ports for platforms such as

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1518-505: The Sega Genesis , TurboGrafx-16 , and PlayStation . Namco continued to produce hit games in the 1990s, including Ridge Racer , Tekken , and Taiko no Tatsujin , but later endured financial difficulties due to the struggling Japanese economy and diminishing arcade market. This led to the 2005 announcement of a merge with toy maker Bandai , which was completed in 2006 as Namco Bandai Holdings ; Namco's former video games division

1587-568: The Sord M5 flopped. Nakamura suggested that his son-in-law, Shigeichi Ishimura, work with a team to reverse-engineer and study the Famicom's hardware in the meantime. His team created a conversion of Galaxian with their newfound knowledge of the console's capabilities, which exceeded the quality of previous home releases. The port was presented to Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi alongside notification that Namco intended to release it with or without Nintendo's approval. Namco's demonstration

1656-668: The European and Asian markets and sell off their 66% stake in Distribution Partners within the next four months to Namco Bandai Games, although they would still retain a five-year distribution deal in the venture. This move was done so Atari could focus on the MMO market. The purchase was completed on July 7, and Distribution Partners was renamed Namco Bandai Partners in immediate effect, alongside all of Atari's European and Australian distribution subsidiaries being renamed under

1725-470: The Famicom's first " killer app ". Namcot also began releasing games for the MSX , a popular Japanese computer. Namco's arcade game ports were considered high-quality and helped increase sales of the console. Namcot was financially successful and became an important pillar within the company; when Namco moved its headquarters to Ōta, Tokyo in 1985, it used the profits generated from the Famicom conversion of Xevious to fund its construction (the building

1794-570: The Japanese dedicated arcade cabinet charts by October 1991, holding the top six positions that month with Starblade at the top. In February 1992, Namco opened its own theme park, Wonder Eggs , in the Futakotamagawa Time Spark area in Setagaya, Tokyo . Described as an "urban amusement center", Wonder Eggs was the first amusement park operated by a video game company. In addition to Galaxian3 and The Tower of Druaga ,

1863-613: The Japanese government in 1976, as Nakamura Seisakusho began returning higher profits; its import of Atari's Breakout was so successful that it led to rampant piracy in the industry. By the end of the year, Nakamura Seisakusho was one of Japan's leading video game companies. Nakamura Seisakusho changed its corporate name to Namco in June 1977. It opened a division in Hong Kong named Namco Enterprises Asia, which maintained video arcades and amusement centers. As Namco's presence in Japan

1932-550: The Namco Bandai Partners umbrella as well. Because of the existing distribute deal planned beforehand, Namco Bandai Partners would continue to distribute Atari's games, which included titles such as Champions Online . and also distribute titles from other publishers, such as Cities XL from Monte Cristo . On April 16, 2010, it was announced that the company had signed an agreement deal with Sony Computer Entertainment to allow them to distribute and publish

2001-527: The Namco banner continued opening up in Japan and overseas, such as the family-friendly Play City Carrot chain. Namco saw continued success in the consumer game market as a result of the "Famicom boom" in the late 1980s. By 1989, sales of games for the Famicom and NES accounted for 40% of its annual revenue. During the same time frame, the company's licensing contract with Nintendo expired; when Namco attempted to renew its license, Nintendo chose to revoke many of

2070-433: The add-on. Sony chose to refocus its efforts in designing the PlayStation in-house as its own console. As it lacked the resources to produce its own games, Sony called for the support of third-party companies to develop PlayStation software. Namco, frustrated with Nintendo and Sega's licensing conditions for its consoles, agreed to support the PlayStation and became its first third-party developer. The company began work on

2139-544: The business grew in size, it used its clout to purchase amusement machines in bulk from other manufacturers at a discount, and then sell them to smaller outlets at full price. While its machines sold well, Nakamura Seisakusho lacked the manufacturing lines and distribution networks of its competitors, which made the production of them longer and more expensive. The company was unable to place its machines inside stores because other manufacturers already had exclusive rights to these locations. In response, Nakamura Seisakusho opened

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2208-685: The company Nakamura Seisakusho Company, Ltd. The Mitsukoshi department store chain noticed his success in 1963, and approached him with the idea of constructing a rooftop amusement space for its store in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. It consisted of horse rides, a picture viewing machine, and a goldfish scooping pond, with the centerpiece being a moving train named Roadaway Race . The space was a hit and lead to Mitsukoshi requesting rooftop amusement parks for all of its stores. Along with Taito , Rosen Enterprises, and Nihon Goraku Bussan , Nakamura Seisakusho became one of Japan's leading amusement companies. As

2277-492: The company financially. Against Nakamura's protest, Namco signed Nintendo's new licensee contract anyway. While it continued to produce games for Nintendo hardware, most of Namco's quality releases came from the PC Engine and Mega Drive . In 1989, it was reported that Namco was underway with developing its own video game console to compete against companies such as Nintendo and NEC. Electronic Gaming Monthly claimed that

2346-454: The company retrofitted its Ōta manufacturing facility into a small game division and purchased old stock computers from NEC for employees to study. Namco released Gee Bee , its first original game, in October 1978. Designed by new hire Toru Iwatani , it is a video pinball game that incorporates elements from Breakout and similar "block breaker" clones. Though Gee Bee fell short of

2415-455: The company's idea of "hyperentertainment" video games, Namco engineers had drafted ideas for a possible theme park based on Namco's experience with designing and operating indoor play areas and entertainment complexes. Both attractions were commercially successful and among the most popular of Expo 90's exhibitions. In arcades, Namco released Starblade , a 3D rail shooter noteworthy for its cinematic presentation. This led to Namco dominating

2484-469: The company's personal computer and home console divisions to Commodore International founder Jack Tramiel , who renamed his company Tramel Technology to Atari Corporation . Warner was left with Atari's arcade game and computer software divisions, which it renamed Atari Games . Namco America purchased a 60% stake in Atari Games on February 4, 1985 through its AT Games subsidiary, with Warner holding

2553-545: The company's sales expectations and was unable to compete with games such as Space Invaders , it allowed Namco to gain a stronger foothold in the video game market. In 1979, Namco published its first major hit Galaxian , one of the first video games to incorporate RGB color graphics, score bonuses, and a tilemap hardware model. Galaxian is considered historically important for these innovations, and for its mechanics building off those in Space Invaders . It

2622-566: The company. Viewing the majority-acquisition as a failure, in 1987 Namco America sold 33% of its ownership stake to a group of Atari Games employees led by Nakajima. This prompted Nakajima to resign from Namco America and become president of Atari Games. He established Tengen , a publisher that challenged Nintendo's licensing restrictions for the NES by selling several unlicensed games, which included ports of Namco arcade games. Though its selloff made Atari Games an independent entity, Namco still held

2691-527: The console was never released, it allowed Namco to familiarize itself with designing home video game hardware. Tadashi Manabe replaced Nakamura as president of Namco on May 2, 1990. Manabe, who had been the company's representative director since 1981, was tasked with strengthening relationships and teamwork ethics of management. Two months later, the company dissolved its remaining connections with Atari Games when Time Warner reacquired Namco America's remaining 40% stake in Atari Games. In return, Namco America

2760-422: The country's largest arcade game companies. The Atari Japan purchase was not an immediate success, in part due to the medal game fad of the 1970s. While Nakamura Seisakusho saw some success with imports such as Kee Games 's Tank , the Japanese video game industry's decrease in popularity did not make them as profitable as hoped. The market became more viable once restrictions on medal games were imposed by

2829-547: The deal. In part due to employee theft, Atari Japan was a financial disaster and nearly collapsed in its first few years of operation. When Takumi stopped showing up to work, the company was handed to Hideyuki Nakajima, a former employee of the Japan Art Paper Company. Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, whose company was already struggling in America, chose to sell the Japanese division. His fixer, Ron Gordon,

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2898-572: The earliest arcade boards to utilize true 3D polygonal graphics. Nicknamed "Polygonizer", the company demonstrated its power through the Formula One racer Winning Run . With an arcade cabinet that shook and swayed the player as they drove, the game was seen as "a breakthrough product in term of programming technique" and garnered significant attention from the press. Winning Run was commercially successful, convincing Namco to continue researching 3D video game hardware. Video arcades under

2967-592: The era in Japan, remaining towards the top of sales charts for the rest of the decade. Namco's continued success in arcades provided its arcade division with the revenue and resources needed to fund its research and development (R&D) departments. Among their first creations was the helicopter shooter Metal Hawk in 1988, fitted in a motion simulator arcade cabinet. Its high development costs prevented it from being massed-produced. While most of its efforts were commercially unsuccessful, Namco grew interested in motion-based arcade games and began designing those at

3036-437: The game Demon's Souls for PAL-region territories. This followed news after Sony's European publishing division and Atlus , who published the game in North America, made announcements that they had no plans to bring the title over to PAL-regions. On 1 July 2013, Namco Bandai Partners merged its operations with Namco Bandai Games Europe, with the latter now handling distribution of games through both Europe and Australia. This

3105-608: The gameplay off eating and designed its characters with soft colors and simplistic facial features. Puck Man was test-marketed in Japan on May 22, 1980 and given a wide-scale in July. It was only a modest success; players were more accustom to the shooting gameplay of Galaxian as opposed to Puck Man ' s visually distinctive characters and gameplay style. In North America, it was released as Pac-Man in November 1980. Pac-Man ' s simplicity and abstract characters made it

3174-510: The group's Bandai Namco Amusements division. The Namco name comes from Nakamura Manufacturing Company , derived from its founder Masaya Nakamura . In the 1960s, it manufactured electro-mechanical arcade games such as the 1965 hit Periscope . It entered the video game industry after acquiring the struggling Japanese division of Atari in 1974, distributing games such as Breakout in Japan. The company renamed itself Namco in 1977 and published Gee Bee , its first original video game,

3243-403: The industry possessed a predominately male playerbase. Toru Iwatani began work on a maze video game that was targeted primarily towards women, with simplistic gameplay and recognizable characters. Alongside a small team, he created a game named Puck Man , where players controlled a character that had to eat dots in an enclosed maze while avoiding four ghosts that pursued them. Iwatani based

3312-450: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NBP&oldid=1196427644 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Articles containing Polish-language text Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Namco Bandai Partners Atari and Namco had long maintained

3381-428: The manufacturing facility was largely reserved for its Disney and anime rides, Nakamura also used it to construct larger, more elaborate electro-mechanical games . The first of these was Torpedo Launcher (1965), a submarine warfare shooting gallery later titled Periscope . Its other products included Ultraman -themed gun games and pinball -like games branded with Osomatsu-kun characters. The name Namco

3450-428: The most influential figures in the worldwide coin-op and arcade game industry; Namco produced several multi-million-selling game franchises , such as Pac-Man , Galaxian , Tekken , Tales , Ridge Racer , and Ace Combat . In 2006, Namco merged with Bandai to form what is now named Bandai Namco Holdings ; the standalone Namco brand continues to be used for video arcade and other entertainment products by

3519-401: The park featured carnival games, carousels, motion simulators, and Fighter Camp , the first flight simulator available to the public. The park saw regularly high attendance numbers; 500,000 visitors attended in its first few months of operation and over one million by the end of the year. Namco created the park out of its interest in designing a Disneyland-inspired theme park that featured

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3588-456: The preferential terms it originally possessed. Hiroshi Yamauchi insisted that all companies, including Namco, had to follow the same guidelines. The revocation of Namco's terms enraged Nakamura, who announced the company would abandon Nintendo hardware and focus on production of games for competing systems such as the PC Engine . Executives resisted the idea, fearing it would severely impact

3657-564: The remaining 40%. The acquisition gave Namco the exclusive rights to distribute Atari games in Japan. Nakamura began losing interest and patience in Atari Games not long after the acquisition. As he started viewing Atari as a competitor to Namco, he was hesitant to pour additional funds and resources into the company. Nakamura also disliked having to share ownership with Warner Communications. Nakajima grew frustrated with Nakamura's attempts at marketing Atari video games in Japan, and had constant disagreements with him over which direction to take

3726-500: The restaurant industry by acquiring the Italian Tomato café chain. It also released Sweet Land , a popular candy-themed prize machine . One of Namco's biggest hits from the era was the racing game Final Lap from 1987. It is credited as the first arcade game to allow multiple machines to be connected—or "linked"—together to allow for additional players. Final Lap was one of the most-profitable coin-operated games of

3795-456: The role. Manabe instead served as the company's vice chairman until his death in 1994. The company's arcade division, in the meantime, began work on a new 3D arcade board named System 22 , capable of displaying polygonal 3D models with fully-textured graphics. Namco enlisted the help of Evans & Sutherland , a designer of combat flight simulators for The Pentagon , to assist in the board's development. The System 22 powered Ridge Racer ,

3864-456: The same kind of stories and characters present in its games. Wonder Eggs contributed to Namco's 34% increase in revenue by December 1992. Namco also designed smaller, indoor theme parks for its larger entertainment complexes across the country, such as Plabo Sennichimae Tempo in Osaka. Manabe resigned as president on May 1, 1992 due to a serious anxiety disorder, and Nakamura once again assumed

3933-580: The struggling post- World War II economy. Nakamura established his own company after his father's business saw success with producing pop cork guns . Beginning with only ¥300,000 (US$ 12,000), Nakamura spent the money on two hand-cranked rocking horses that he installed on the roof garden of a Matsuya department store in Yokohama . The horses were loved by children and turned a decent profit for Nakamura, who began expanding his business to cover other smaller locations. A 1959 business reorganization renamed

4002-464: The system, which was nearing completion, featured hardware comparable to the then-upcoming Nintendo Super Famicom . According to company engineer Yutaka Isokawa, it was produced to compete against the Mega Drive, a 16-bit console by Namco's arcade rival Sega. With the console industry being crowded by other competing systems, publications were unsure how well it would perform in the market. While

4071-499: Was able to gain a foothold in the Japanese film industry. In early 1994, Sony announced that it was developing its own video game console, the 32-bit PlayStation . The console began as a collaboration between Nintendo and Sony to create a CD-based peripheral for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. Fearing that Sony would assume control of the entire project, Nintendo silently scrapped

4140-480: Was consolidated into Namco in 1995; its final game was a PlayStation port of Tekken , published in March in Japan and in November worldwide. Tekken was designed for Namco's System 11 arcade system board, which was based on raw PlayStation hardware; this allowed the home version to be a near-perfect rendition of its arcade counterpart. Tekken became the first PlayStation game to sell one million copies and played

4209-466: Was done out of the parent company's desire in merging its publishing and distribution divisions together to help unify the Namco Bandai brand. Namco Namco Limited was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company founded in 1955 which operated video arcades and amusement parks globally, produced video games, films, toys, and arcade cabinets . They were one of

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4278-483: Was given Atari's video arcade management division, Atari Operations, allowing the company to operate video arcades across the United States. Namco began distributing games in North America directly from its US office, rather than through Atari. Namco Hometek was established as the home console game division of Namco America; the latter's relations with Atari Games and Tengen made the company ineligible to become

4347-507: Was given the task of finding the buyer for Atari Japan. After being turned down by Sega and Taito, Gordon's offer was accepted by Nakamura for ¥ 296 million ($ 1.18M), though Nakamura informed Bushnell his company was unable to pay the money by the deadline. With no other takers for Atari Japan, Bushnell ultimately allowed Nakamura to only pay $ 550,000 and then $ 250,000 a year for three years. The acquisition allowed Nakamura Seisakusho to distribute Atari games across Japan, and would make it one of

4416-435: Was introduced in 1971 as a brand for several of its machines. The company grew to having ten employees, which included Nakamura himself. It saw continued success with its arcade games, which had become commonplace in bowling alleys and grocery stores. The company also established a robotics division to produce robots for entertainment centers and festivals, such as those that distributed pamphlets, ribbon making machines, and

4485-549: Was merged into a subsidiary of the holdings company, Namco Bandai Games, now called Bandai Namco Entertainment . Namco is remembered in retrospect for its unique corporate model, its importance to the industry, and its advancements in technology. On June 1, 1955, Japanese businessman Masaya Nakamura founded Nakamura Seisakusho Co., Ltd. , in Ikegami, Tokyo. The son of a shotgun repair business owner, Nakamura proved unable to find work in his chosen profession of ship building in

4554-574: Was nicknamed "Xevious" as a result). The Talking Aid, a speech impairment device , was part of the company's attempts in venturing into other markets. By the time the Video game crash of 1983 concluded in 1985 with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Atari had effectively collapsed. After enduring numerous financial difficulties and losing its control in the industry, parent Warner Communications sold

4623-442: Was released in North America by Midway Manufacturing , the video game division of Bally, where it became one of its best-selling titles and formed a relationship between Midway and Namco. The space shooter genre became ubiquitous by the end of the decade, with games such as Galaxian and Space Invaders becoming commonplace in Japanese amusement centers. As video games often depicted the killing of enemies and shooting of targets,

4692-517: Was steadily rising, Nakajima suggested to Nakamura that he open a division in the United States to increase worldwide brand awareness. Nakamura agreed to the proposal, and on September 1, 1978, established Namco America in Sunnyvale, California . With Nakajima as its president and Satashi Bhutani as vice president, Namco America's aim was to import games and license them to companies such as Atari and Bally Manufacturing . Namco America would release

4761-544: Was the impetus for Nintendo's decision to create a licensing program for the console. Namco signed a five-year royalties contract that included several preferential terms, such as the ability to produce its own cartridges. A subsidiary named Namcot was established in 1984 to act as Namco's console game division. It released its first four titles in September: Galaxian , Pac-Man , Xevious , and Mappy . Xevious sold over 1.5 million copies and became

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