Japanese, or the meaning of the country of the rising sun in the game industry

Japan is a great power (of course, not as great as Rus’, but also great), and, like any country, it has its own culture, customs, traditions, sushi. We will not argue, the culture of the Japanese is very peculiar, it is so peculiar that many people from the West do not understand it.

I often hear that someone likes the Japanese, or vice versa, someone hates it. There are people who are dragging from everything Japanese: manga, anime, Japanese music … and games. And there are those who do not tolerate all this to the spirit. But Japanese games are loved by many gamers (I’m not talking about all kinds of dates with pigeons there, but about such creations as Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Devil May Cry), fact.

In this Blozhik you will learn a brief story of Japanese game studios, as well as a couple of interesting facts about them.

Capcom was founded in 1979 under the name « I.P.M Corporation « . It is noteworthy that it was not founded by poor students with great enthusiasm, but businessmen who believed that they would make a solid profit in the world of games. Initially, the company is engaged in slot machines and, accordingly, games for them. Further for ten years, the company has been actively developing, changing the name several times, and decides to call itself proudly Capcom (abbreviated from Capsule Computer), already manages to release its super popular Street Fighter and Megaman. In 1991, he buys a small Yunika studio and, I must say, it was a very successful move, because Shigni Mikami himself worked in this very Yunika.(Who is this?) Over the next five years, the company, in fact, lives at the expense of one of its popular game- Street Fighter II. The game becomes unthinkably popular, 20 years ago it surrounded the Japanese literally from all sides.

You come home from work/studies, out of old habit, you flop on the sofa, turn on the TV. Show the anime Street Fighter II v. By including NES, you play Street Fighter II. The next day you go to study/work, you see a Street Fighter II advertisement throughout the city. I remembered the game, I wanted to play again. You find the first slot machine that hit, play Street Fighter II. Late for study/work, why not go to the cinema, watch the new Hollywood film Street Fighter? And then you can go home and still play … well, you understand.

And in 1996, Shigni Mikami (yes, the same) releases the first Resident Evil. He almost independently developed the idea, concept, plot, characters, in general, everything we met in the game. The game receives a record number of sales, thousands of fans and is one of the founders of the Survival Horror genre. Mikami himself becomes a celebrity and, in general, almost a folk hero. Naturally, Resident is not his only game, earlier he worked on Disney Goof Troop, Aladdin, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but remained in the shadow of better well -known developers at that time. And later, after the success of Resident Evil, he continued to create a Resident series, and also had a hand in Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, Killer 7 and many other Capcom projects.

We summarize the mini.CAPCOM is a company that gave us such masterpieces as Street Fighter, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, a company that has gone through thirty years of history, it still gives fans its best series of games. And do not forget the name of Xini Mikami – the great ingenious game designer who made a great series.

It all started with the https://casinomrpunter.co.uk/ release of mechanical horses. Nakamura Manoufacturing Ltd, founded by Mr. Masai Nakamura, specialized in the release of children’s toys. However, Nakamura soon realizes that the future behind digital technologies acquires the Japanese branch of Atari, which served as a direct road to the world of games. It was decided to rename itself into Namco (reduction from Nakamura Manoufacturing Company), and in 1978 the company releases its first game – Arkada Gee Bee – and rushed through. Next year, two of its sequels come out, as well as their first hit-Galaxian. But Galaxian is nothing compared to the next company’s game, meet the great and terrible Pacman.

The game was developed by almost one employee of the Namco Torah Ivatani, he worked on the game for eighteen months. The name of the game comes from the Japanese expression パクパク食べる, which translates how to eat, bite, repeatedly wide open his mouth and slam it. In Japan, the game was not popular, but in America and Europe it was sold with great success. Initially, the game was called Puck Man, but the Americans demanded to change it, for Puck You. On July 3, 1999, an absolute record was recorded in the number of points, Billy Mitchel scored 3,333,360 points, he spent about 6 hours to collect all points, all energy -players, all fruits, eat all the ghosts at all 255 levels. In the Guinness Book of Guinness Pac-Man received 6th place as one of the best characters in the history of video games.

The next 20 years, the company mainly makes money on slot machines. In 2005, Namco was united with Bandai, the main manufacturer of toys in Japan, so Namco Bandai appears. Recently, Namco Bandai was recognized as the most influential publisher of the video game in Japan, ahead of giants such as Sony, Sega, Capcom and Nintendo. And this is not surprising, because Namko continues to produce masterpieces to this day. On their account, games such as Tekken, Soul Calibur, Enemy Front, Ace Combat, Dynasty Warriors and my favorite Dark Souls.

Nintendo has existed since 1889. Its first name is Marufuku, and the first products were playing cards. In 1907, the company is called Nintendo Koppai.
In 1949, Khiroshi Yamouti rises at the head of Nintendo. He inherited this position from his grandfather, Oiro Yamauti. From the previous head of Hiroshi, he was distinguished by negligence, arrogance and commitment to his own management style – nintedism: no corporate hymns and other timb over, interfering with creativity.

The new director was tough in his decisions. On one of the strikes related to the decision to centralize the working capacities in one place, answered with letters of the approximate content “Collect things and look for another job”. In general, a harsh man was a harsh.

In 1978, the company opens a unit created for the production of games for slot machines. One of the first products is Computer Othello, an analogue of Reversee, and two years later Siger Miyamoto, a full -time artist Nintendo, creates everyone’s beloved Donkey Kong. Another year and machine guns with Donkey Kong will become one of the most popular slot machines in Japan.
Further in 1984, Nintendo produces the Famicom game system to Japan, which after the start of world sales was renamed Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). They were developed and extended to the other outstanding games, from hits such as Excitebike, Super Mario Bros and Metroid, to The Legend of Zelda and Punch-ut. Super Mario Bros as soon as possible conquers the whole world and becomes an absolute hit. According to studies of that time, the children knew Mario at least as good as Mickey Mouse and Bagsa-Bannie.

Having first appeared in 1981 in the game of Donkey Kong, it was then used in more than 200 games – both arcades and races, puzzles and sports simulators. In total, more than 210 million units of games were sold with him. According to the Guinness Book of Guinness Mario, is in 1st place in the list of fifty best characters in computer games. Friends of Mario, Dinosaurus Yoshi and Princess Pich, by the way, are also included in this list, in 21st and 44th place, respectively.

In 1989, Game Boy was born, the world’s first portable pocket console with replaceable game cartridges. A year after the release of Game Boy’s native shelves, it starts very successfully in Europe.
Further in 1992, Super Nes sales begin, two years later, Super Game Boy appears on store shelves, the company produces more and more games, by the end of 1995 Nintendo releases its billion cartridge.

Virtual Boy, one of the few « bad » Nintendo consoles. Guess why it was expected to fail?
The next game console of the campaign is Nintendo 64, the company’s response on Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. However, the new prefix was not as successful as previous models. One of the reasons is the use of cartridges when competitors release cheap discs. Perhaps, starting with Nintendo 64, Sony takes away from Nintendo a battery of leadership in the global video game market.
In 2000, a portable 32-bit game system Game Boy Advance and a new generation of GameCube were presented at Space World. It is noteworthy that the Game Boy Advance is compatible with all the previous verses of Game Boy, and is also able to interact with GameCube.

And so it happened that gradually Nintendo rolled into a fairly interesting niche, when its products were interesting only to the devoted fans of the company and the broad masses bypassed them. It seemed that the only thing that holds Nintendo in this world is the less tolerable Game Boy sales. But then Nintendo introduced a portable gaming prefix DS, which has become instantly popular. This success was followed by another – WII prefix, as July 2012, the console was sold around the world in the amount of 96.5 million pieces, thus becoming the most successful Nintendo console.
At the beginning of 2011, the Nintendo 3DS system was represented, on which you can view the content in stereoscopic 3D without special glasses. Not too successful sales of the console due to the high price and a small number of games forced the company’s management to reduce the price of the device, which spurred further sales, and reduced the cost of Nintendo shares. This led to the losses of the company that happened for the first time in 30 years. However, over time, the console is becoming more popular, and by 2012 the sales of the portable prefix exceed 20 million.
To date, Nintendo has two main consoles – this is Nintendo 3DS and WII U. Unfortunately, the new prefixes of the company are sold much worse than competitors, but Nintendo is still one of the leading manufacturers of consoles. Nintendo has lost its former glory and is unlikely to take off as high as before, but it still remains itself-that is, a publishing house that can alone make its own consoles deserves to acquires.
In addition, it is a company that has made many great series of games living to this day: it is Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda and, of course, the immortal Mario.

The first business of Mr. Kazemas Kozumi was to repair and rent music machines, however, after three years of work, Kozumi understands that he wants something more. So he becomes the first president of Konami, and still remains him, demonstrating amazing survivability. In 1978, the first slot machine was published, and it went – one after another, games such as Frogger, Scramble and Super Cobra are released, as well as the much more popular Castlevania. A year after Castlevania, another hit comes out – Contra. And in 1987, the first game of the Metal Gear Solid series is released from the little -known at that time developer Hideo Kojima.

Today is the head of Kojima Productions (Konami unit), in the past – Vice President Konami. The first Lost World Code developed was canceled, so Metal Gear Solid is the first released game Kojima. Metal Gear is the world’s first game in the Stealth-CTION genre, for the first time the players were offered most of the gameplay time not to fight, but to hide from opponents. After the departure of Kojima, it is difficult for many gamers to imagine what the new Metal Gear Survival will be.

Konami has become successful largely thanks to the prefix Famicon. The company was so actively released for this console that Nintendo of America decided to limit the maximum number of projects manufactured by five games for the console per year. But Konami was not at a loss – and created a small Ultra Games studio, under the brand of which hits such as Metal Gearuss, the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Snake’s Revevenge. In the early nineties, Nintendo calmed down and removed the prohibitions on the license, and Konami disappeared into the “fake” studio at the “fake” studio. Ultra Games was closed in 1992, and the staff of developers flowed into an official American branch.
Until the end of the twentieth century, Konami manages to release an extremely unsuccessful new 3D Contru, and a much more successful continuation of Castlvania. In 1998, a slot machine Dance Dance Revolution was created. The dance simulator becomes insanely popular, its many clones come out, but in Japan it is Dance Dance that is still considered a cult.

But besides Metal Gear, Konami has another series of games that occupies a separate niche in the gaming industry. This, of course, Silent Hill. Many gamers consider Silent Hill 2 one of the worst games in the industry.
Further, the company continues its best episodes – one by one there are continuations of Castlvania, Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, these games live to this day, delighting fans and bringing Konami a huge profit.

Well, we got acquainted with a pair of stories of Japanese game studios. Great work, keep it up!
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