Hudson Soft Co., Ltd. was a Japanese company that created many video games for consoles, home computers, and mobile phones. The company was based in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo and had offices in the Hudson Building in Sapporo, Japan, and a branch in San Mateo, California, United States. It was founded on May 18, 1973, and first made products for personal computers before later creating video games, publishing games, making game accessories, and producing music.

Hudson Soft made popular games such as Bomberman, Adventure Island, Star Soldier, Bonk, and Bloody Roar. The company also created games for other companies, including the Mario Party series for Nintendo. Hudson worked with NEC to design the TurboGrafx-16, TurboExpress, and PC-FX consoles. These consoles were meant to compete with companies like Nintendo, Sega, SNK, Atari, Philips, and Sony. At the same time, Hudson continued to make games for other platforms as a third-party developer.

In 2000, Hudson Soft became a publicly traded company. In 2005, Konami bought a 55% ownership share in Hudson. Konami fully purchased the company on April 1, 2011. On March 1, 2012, Hudson merged with Konami Digital Entertainment. Konami Digital Entertainment keeps Hudson’s game collection and sometimes releases classic Hudson games again.

History

Hudson Soft Ltd. was founded in Toyohira-ku, Sapporo, Japan, on May 18, 1973, by brothers Yuji and Hiroshi Kudo. The founders admired trains and named the company after their favorite, the Hudson locomotives, including the Japanese C62. The company’s mascot was a bee named Hachisuke, a reference to its roots in amateur radio. In Japanese, "hachi" means both "eight" and "bee," and the radio call sign for Hokkaido is JA8.

Hudson began as a radio shop called CQ Hudson, selling radio equipment and art photographs. Yuji Kudo originally planned to open a coffee shop, but because one already existed in the same building, he decided to start a radio shop instead. Although the Kudo brothers had university education, neither studied business management. This, along with difficulty finding trustworthy workers, caused the company to struggle financially during its early years as a radio shop.

In September 1975, Hudson began selling personal computer-related products. In March 1978, the company started developing and selling video games. At that time, many radio shops shifted to selling computers because they used similar electronic equipment. CQ Hudson operated in Sapporo for decades until it closed in May 2001.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hudson focused on producing many video games quickly, but few were successful. In late 1983, the company changed its strategy to focus on quality over quantity. Hudson became Nintendo’s first third-party partner for the Family Computer, and its game Lode Runner sold 1.2 million copies after its 1984 release.

Hudson continued making video games for the Famicom and other computer systems, including the MSX, NEC PC-8801, and ZX Spectrum. Bomberman was released on the Famicom in December 1983 and became a major success.

In July 1987, Hudson developed the "C62 System" and partnered with NEC to create the PC Engine video game console. It was very successful in Japan but less so in North America, where it competed with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis. In 1990, Hudson made games for many systems. In 1994, the company created the 32-bit "HuC62" chip, which was used in NEC’s PC-FX console.

In 2004, Hudson partnered with Flying Tiger Entertainment to create 25 titles. In 2005, Hudson moved its main office to the Midtown Tower in Tokyo, though the Sapporo headquarters remained open as a secondary office.

Starting in the mid-2000s, Hudson lost several important employees. Co-founder Hiroshi Kudo left in 2004 after financial losses. Shinichi Nakamoto, who created the Bomberman series, left in 2006. Veteran Takahashi Meijin resigned in 2011. Around 2010–2011, many employees joined Nintendo’s Nd Cube subsidiary, led by Hidetoshi Endo, a former Hudson president.

Hudson’s relationship with Konami began in 1985, when Hudson released Konami’s arcade game Pooyan on the MSX and Family Computer. Konami began acquiring Hudson’s shares in 2001 after Hudson faced financial trouble with its main bank, Hokkaido Takushoku. Hudson listed on the NASDAQ Japan Exchange in 2000, and Konami became its largest shareholder by buying 5.6 million shares in 2001. Hudson also acquired Konami’s Sapporo division, renaming it Hudson Studio.

In 2005, Hudson increased its capital by accepting 3 million shares from a third party. Konami, owning 53.99% of Hudson’s stock, became its controlling shareholder. Hudson continued making games while working closely with Konami, who distributed Hudson’s games in Japan.

On January 20, 2011, Konami announced plans to fully acquire Hudson Soft, making it a subsidiary. The deal was completed on April 1, 2011. Hudson’s American branch, Hudson Entertainment, was closed during the process.

On March 1, 2012, Hudson Soft merged with Konami Digital Entertainment. Hudson’s music business was absorbed into KME Corporation. The merger was agreed upon by both companies during a board meeting in January 2012. The main reason was to combine operations between Hudson and KDE into one subsidiary.

Although Hudson Soft no longer existed as a separate company, Konami planned to continue using the Hudson brand for some products. Konami initially kept the Hudson website but removed it by early 2014. The Sapporo headquarters, once Hudson’s main office, continued operating as a Konami branch until it closed in 2014. In 2015, Konami sold the Sapporo building that had long been Hudson’s headquarters.

Caravan competitions

From 1985 to 2000, and occasionally after, Hudson Soft organized a games competition in Japan called the "Hudson All-Japan Caravan Festival." Most years, the competition centered on one game. From 1985 to 1992, except 1988, the games were shoot 'em ups. During these years, the Caravan showed how popular Hudson was. Later competitions were less popular and used less challenging games. Some later events focused on Hudson Soft's Bomberman series.

Many early shoot 'em up games used in the Caravan had two-minute and five-minute practice modes built into the cartridges, so players could practice before competitions.

• 1985 – Star Force for the Famicom was the first game used in summer competitions in Japan.
• 1986 – Star Soldier for the Famicom was the second competition game.
• 1987 – Starship Hector (called Hector '87 in Japan) was the third and last Famicom game used before the Caravan moved to the PC Engine. These three games were later included in the Hudson Caravan Collection for the Super Famicom and the Hudson Best Collection for the Game Boy Advance.
• 1988 – Power League (World Class Baseball in the USA) was the first PC Engine competition game. This was unusual because it was a sports game, not a shooter.
• 1989 – Gunhed (Blazing Lazers) for the PC Engine was the competition game. A few cartridges made for the competition were labeled Gunhed Taikai (Special Edition) and are now very rare and expensive.
• 1990 – Super Star Soldier for the PC Engine.
• 1991 – Final Soldier for the PC Engine.
• 1992 – Soldier Blade for the PC Engine was the last popular Caravan competition. Later events used Bomberman and other games that were popular at the time. The PC Engine games from 1990, 1991, and 1992 were re-released as the PC Engine Best Collection – Soldier Collection for the PSP.

Subsidiaries

A division based in Sapporo. It was first created as part of Konami Computer Entertainment Studio and was purchased by Hudson on July 26, 2001.

Hudson Soft's first North American publishing branch was established in 1988 and originally based in South San Francisco, California. The first video games it planned to release for the Nintendo Entertainment System were Adventure Island, Milon's Secret Castle, Bomberman, and Starship Hector.

In late 1995, Hudson Soft USA sold the rights to all its games that had not yet been released to Acclaim Entertainment. It then moved its main office to Seattle, Washington, and closed by the end of the year.

On July 25, 1991, Hudson Soft Europe GmbH was created in Hamburg, Germany.

Hudson Soft's second North American publishing branch was restarted by John Brandstetter from Flying Tiger and formed in November 2003 as a replacement for Hudson Soft USA. It was initially based in Brea, California, at Flying Tiger's headquarters and later moved to San Mateo, California. The branch had separate sections for mobile games and console video games.

On July 23, 2003, Hudson Soft announced the launch of its North American mobile phone Java game service, GameMaster. This service was developed by Flying Tiger for AT&T's mMode and became active on July 28, 2003, for NTT DoCoMo.

Hudson Entertainment stopped operating on March 31, 2011, after Konami bought the parent company.

Hudson Soft's music recording label unit was merged into KME Corporation on March 1, 2012. KME Corporation is a music subsidiary of Konami Digital Entertainment.

Video game releases

Hudson Soft created several well-known game series, including Bomberman, Bonk, Star Soldier, and Adventure Island.

Hudson also made a popular video game series called Far East of Eden, which was a role-playing game set in an imaginary version of feudal Japan. This series had four main games when Hudson was taken over by Konami. The second game in the series was considered one of the best RPGs ever made and was ranked 12th by Famitsu among all games in Japan. Hudson also developed the Momotaro Dentetsu series, a board game-style video game focused on business activities. Sixteen games in this series were released in Japan. Before being taken over by Konami, Hudson re-released some of its early successful games for the GameCube in Japan, including Adventure Island, Star Soldier, and Lode Runner.

Hudson created games for other companies for many years. One of the most famous was the Mario Party series, which Hudson developed for Nintendo. They made the first eight console versions and two handheld versions of the game. However, after Hudson was taken over by Konami, Nintendo’s subsidiary NDcube, which includes many former Hudson employees, developed Mario Party 9 and later games. Hudson also made Fuzion Frenzy 2 for Microsoft, which was released for the Xbox 360 in January 2007. Bomberman 64: The Second Attack was published by Vatical Entertainment, unlike earlier versions of the game on the Nintendo 64, which were published by Nintendo.