18 replies to this topic

[so_tough!]

http://www.escapistm...t-Ceases-to-Bee


Venerable developer, Hudson Soft, the studio behind Bomberman, is being absorbed into Konami.
On March 1st, Hudson, whose logo you can see to the right, will effectively cease to exist. On January 12th, Hudson board members agreed for the company to be absorbed into Konami Digital Entertainment.
Founded back in 1973 by brothers Yuji and Hiroshi Kudo, Hudson Soft began as a shop selling telecommunications devices and art photographs. The company began producing games in 1978 and became Nintendo's first third-party software vendor for the NES. In 1983 it produced Bomberman for the MSX, certainly its most enduring franchise. More recently, Hudson developed the Mario Party numbers one through eight and 2010's Lost in Shadow. Sadly, the developer has produced little else of note, except the woefully bad Bomberman: Act Zero, in the past half-decade. It was acquired by Konami back in April of last year.
Despite Hudson's descent into irrelevance in recent years, it's still a touch sad to see one of gaming's oldest names retired.

R.I.P Hudson soft.

Edited by so_tough!, Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:15 PM.

[akator]

Hudson also produced the Star Soldier series, of which there was an amazing PSP version in 2006 (never released in the US, though). They had tons of decent titles over the years, although most never made it to the US.

I guess there isn't much room for smaller developers on consoles anymore. Hudson probably could have survived nicely if they had become a smartphone game developer, but it's too late now

[so_tough!]

yeah..hudson also helped develop the PC Engine and made lots of great games for it. One of my fav companies.

[bomberpunk]

[Hatta]

Hudson still existed? Hu knew?

[SlowCoder]

Isn't it the hope and dream of many small startups to become big enough to be noticed and bought by one of the bigger ones? You work for a few years, then sell your company for multi-millions. Then take your money on a permanent vacation.

[Eltigro]

My avatar picture mourns.

[bomberpunk]

i wonder if Konami is going to keep all the DLC active.

[7800Lover]

Wow...I'm shocked.

I remember Hudson Soft most for their Adventure Island series. In fact, I'm playing through New Adventure Island on the TG-16 as I type this.

[Hatta]

7800Lover, on Sat Jan 28, 2012 11:15 AM, said:

In fact, I'm playing through New Adventure Island on the TG-16 as I type this.

That sounds difficult.

[NightSprinter]

Speaking of, where's Master Higgins (Toshiyuki Takahashi/Takahashi Meijin) going to work now? Even if his manual rapid-fire skills went down by three shots per second (from 16/s), the guy's been doing a lot still in the gaming industry over in Japan.

[GKC]

Well that sucks. I guess this officially kills any hope of that new Bonk game they were working being released. Despite being rumored to be DLC only I was kind of looking forward to it.

[NBC]

I loved Husand Soft contribution to the video game world. I love the PC Engine. What is going to happen to Boink. I'm know I'm late to the party but better late than never.

[Giltygear]

NightSprinter, on Sat Jan 28, 2012 11:34 PM, said:

Speaking of, where's Master Higgins (Toshiyuki Takahashi/Takahashi Meijin) going to work now? Even if his manual rapid-fire skills went down by three shots per second (from 16/s), the guy's been doing a lot still in the gaming industry over in Japan.

I think i read somewhere that he stopped working for hudson a long time ago and that he was still making the random paid appearance at events and trade shows. That man's legacy rivals "Segata Sanshiro".

Its sad to see Hudson go, but they made the PCEngine, and theres enough games on that to keep someone like me entertained for YEARS. They had a good run.

[Rex Dart]

NBC, on Tue Mar 13, 2012 11:02 PM, said:

I loved Husand Soft contribution to the video game world. I love the PC Engine. What is going to happen to Boink. I'm know I'm late to the party but better late than never.

Nintandus bought Boink.

[BillyHW]

I think Hudson were the developers behind Wonder Boy weren't they? That's why they were able to create Adventure Island, just with with different characters.

It's really too bad that NEC mishandled the North American launch of the TurboGrafx as badly as they did, and they never made a serious attempt at launching a successor to the PC-Engine.

[Jess Ragan]

Nope, they got the rights from Escape (now Westone). Evidently Sega owned the rights to the Wonder Boy characters so they add to drop in their own. They wound up using their Jack Black-looking spokesman as the star, and changing the name to Hudson's Adventure Island.

Funny thing about the evolution of Wonder Boy and Adventure Island. Depth came to the Wonder Boy series early, with Wonder Boy III bringing sprawling worlds to the series. However, Adventure Island stuck with the Super Mario Bros. formula for many years, until Adventure Island IV and Super Adventure Island II strayed from it.

[BillyHW]

But Monsterland and Wonder Boy III were clearly different games, unrelated to the original. The just used the Wonder Boy trademark to market them.

[Austin]

BillyHW, on Sun Mar 18, 2012 5:14 AM, said:

But Monsterland and Wonder Boy III were clearly different games, unrelated to the original. The just used the Wonder Boy trademark to market them.

Every Wonder Boy game is pretty different from one-another, especially when compared to the original.