Bandai Company, Limited (株式会社バンダイ Kabushiki-gaisha Bandai?) is a
Japanese toy making and
video game company, as well as the producer of a large number of
plastic model kits. It is the world's third-largest producer of toys (after
Mattel and
Hasbro).
[1] Some ex-
Bandai group companies produce
anime and
tokusatsu programs. Its headquarters is located in
Taitō,
Tokyo.
[2]
After the merger with game developer and amusement facility operator
Namco, Bandai Company, Limited is now under the management of
Bandai Namco Holdings and a member of
Bandai Namco Group. After group reorganisation in 2006, Bandai heads the group's Toys and Hobby
Strategic Business Unit (SBU).
[3]
History
Saab 96 tin plate toy car by Bandai
Bandai was founded in 1950. In the 1960s Bandai expanded to include
export sales. Bandai's racing car set, which first appeared in 1962,
became a huge success. The 1970s continued to see Bandai expand, with
Bandai Models being established in 1971. Although not their most
profitable range, Bandai's 1/48 scale AFV models dominated that segment
of the model kit market. Bandai America Inc. was established as local US
sales/marketing operation in 1978.
Spacewarp, a line of build-it-yourself toy rolling ball "roller coasters" was introduced by Bandai in the 1980s.
Since the 1980s, Bandai has become the leading toy company of Japan,
and to this day, has the main toy licenses in Japan to popular
properties including
Daikaiju,
Ultraman,
Super Robot,
Kamen Rider, the
Super Sentai and
Power Rangers series (which they took part in creating),
Gundam and many others.
The management of Bandai and
Sega discussed a merger in the late 1990s, but the merger was later cancelled, citing "cultural differences".
[citation needed]
Former subsidiaries
Before the formation of Bandai Namco Holdings, Bandai had many
subsidiaries. After group reorganization in 2006, they are managed under
several strategic business units (SBUs) of the group. Further detail:
Toys and Hobby SBU
Bandai USA
Bandai USA (doing business as
Bandai America Incorporated) is the American distribution arm of Bandai that makes toy products for the U.S. market and manufactures
Power Rangers,
Big Hero 6,
Digimon, and
Ben 10 toys. Other past products include
Visual and music contents SBU
Bandai Visual
Main article:
Bandai Visual, produces and distributes many popular
anime and
tokusatsu titles. These titles include
Cowboy Bebop,
Big O,
Outlaw Star,
Please Teacher!,
Escaflowne, and the popular
Gundam,
Kamen Rider,
Ultraman, and
Super Sentai series. Its subsidiaries include the
Emotion Music Company, Limited, in which the logo is the
Moai, a
statue found on
Easter Island. It now heads the Visual and Music Contents SBU. Their American division,
Bandai Visual USA
was absorbed into Bandai Entertainment in July 2008. Bandai
Entertainment is no longer acquiring licenses to new anime. As of March
1, 2013 Bandai Entertainment is no longer distributing home video in
North America except for some.
Bandai Entertainment
Bandai Entertainment, Inc. was involved in the distribution of numerous anime in North America, as well as
manga and other merchandising ventures related to anime. Its headquarters in the United States were located in
Cypress, California.
Carddass
Carddass is the Bandai
subsidiary responsible for releasing
trading card games based on popular Bandai franchises. This includes games such as the
Gundam War Collectible Card Game based on the
Gundam metaseries, as well as a Gash Bell (
Zatch Bell!) TCG,
Naruto CCG,
Rangers Strike (
Super Sentai series,
Kamen Rider series,
Metal Hero series),
Neon Genesis Evangelion Ultra Galaxy Daikaijyu Battle (
Ultra series) and most recently their most successful to date, the
Battle Spirits Trading Card Game.
Sunrise
Game contents SBU
Bandai Games (now Bandai Namco Games)
Bandai Games produced and distributed
video games based on Bandai properties including
Mobile Suit Gundam: Zeonic Front,
Gundam Wing: Endless Duel and
Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo.
In the early 1990s, Bandai published games for
Nintendo in
the United Kingdom, including
Street Fighter II on the
Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
[4]
In the beginning of 2005, Bandai Games opened a United States office
as a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai America which, prior to that,
handled the publishing of video games in North America itself.
On March 31, 2006, it merged with
Namco Ltd. and was renamed
Bandai Namco Games Inc.
Motorsports
2006 Bandai Direzza
SC430.
In 2006, Bandai entered
Super GT with
Lexus SC, and won 2006 Super GT Season GT500 Class Round 3 Overall Winner and ranked on fifth place in GT500 Class.
Consoles
During the late 1970s, Bandai sold the
TV Jack console line: a series of pong based consoles. The last of the series was the
Bandai Super Vision 8000
console released in 1979. It wasn't a simple pong based console system
but a cartridge system with an 8-bit NEC D780C (Z80 clone) as
CPU.
During the early 1980s, Bandai distributed a number of videogame machines. In 1982 the Bandai Arcadia, a variant of the Emerson
Arcadia 2001,
was released in Japan by Bandai. There were also four Japan-exclusive
game releases which were the only known Arcadia titles written by other
companies than UA Ltd. They also released local variants of the
Intellivision and
vectrex game consoles.
Bandai produced a running mat called the
Family Fun Fitness System for the
Nintendo Entertainment System starting in 1986. A series of games was released both in the US and in Japan, including
Athletic World and
Stadium Events
for the NES. Shortly after its release, Nintendo purchased the rights
to the FFF mat in North America, replacing it with their own redesign,
the
Power Pad. In order to maintain branding continuity,
Stadium Events was pulled from shelves after a short period of availability at
Woolworth's stores. Due to the fact that the game was pulled from shelves and discontinued before many copies were sold, Bandai's
Stadium Events is universally accepted as the rarest licensed NES game released in North America.
[5][6] A shrinkwrapped copy of the game sold for $41,270 on eBay in February 2010.
[7] The sister game to
Stadium Events, called
Athletic World
was initially released with a label that indicated compatibility with
the Family Fun Fitness mat, but was later re-released with an updated
label that mentions the Power Pad instead.
[8] Stadium Events was not released again, but instead was slightly modified and relaunched as the Power Pad pack-in game,
World Class Track Meet.
In the '90s, Bandai teamed up with
Apple to make
The Pippin. They also made their own game console, the
Playdia. Neither was a mass-market success. In 1999, Bandai created the
WonderSwan portable game system. It, and its update, the
WonderSwan Color,
sold modestly well, but were unable to seriously challenge the dominant
Game Boy Color and later, the Game Boy Advance. It was discontinued in
2003.
Handheld systems
Bandai has also released a series of
handheld game consoles including the
WonderSwan,
WonderSwan Color and
Swan Crystal. The systems were only released in Japan.
Bandai has also released a series of
LCD games including
Tuttuki Bako (released in Japan in 2008) and the
LCD Solarpower series (released in the 1980s in both regions).
Games developed/published by Bandai
Bandai Super Vision 8000
- Beam Galaxian
- Gun Professional
- Missile Vader
- Othello
- PacPacBird
- Space Fire
- Submarine
LCD
- Patsy Duck
- Sailor Moon
- Sailor Moon Heart
- Anpanman
Arcadia 2001
Bandai RX-78
Mac OS
Playdia
3DO
Sega Game Gear
Game Boy
NES
Nintendo DS
Sega Genesis
SNES
PlayStation
PlayStation 2
PlayStation 3
Sega Saturn
Nintendo GameCube
Wii
Virtual reality /
Augmented reality
Xbox 360
Game Boy Advance
Microsoft Windows
-
See also
References
