History
Hudson Soft Ltd. was founded in Toyohira-ku, Sapporo, Japan, on May 18, 1973, by brothers Yuji and Hiroshi Kudo. The founders grew up admiring trains and named the business after their favourite, the Hudson locomotives (called the "4-6-4", and especially the Japanese C62). The company's mascot was a bee named Hachisuke, a reference to the company's origins in amateur radio. In Japanese, hachi means both 'eight' and 'bee,' and the radio call sign for Hokkaido is JA8.
Hudson began as an amateur radio shop called CQ Hudson (CQハドソン), selling radio telecommunications devices and art photographs. Yuji Kudo had originally planned to start a coffee shop, but there was already one in the same building, resulting in the decision to change to a wireless radio shop at the eleventh hour. Although the Kudo brothers had university education, neither had studied in business management. That factor, combined with the difficulty to find trustworthy people to accompany the Kudos in their venture, meant that Hudson was almost always in the red each month during its era exclusively as a radio shop.
In September 1975, Hudson began selling personal computer-related products and in March 1978 started developing and selling video game packages.[12] At that time, many amateur radio shops were switching to the sales of personal computers because they deal with the same electronic equipment. CQ Hudson would continue to operate for decades in Sapporo until Hudson Soft closed the shop in May 2001.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hudson Soft favoured a quantity-over-quality approach for the marketing of video games.[13] At one point, the company released up to 30 different computer software titles per month; none of which were hugely successful.[13] Things changed in late 1983, when Hudson started to prioritise quality-over-quantity.[13] Hudson became Nintendo's first third-party software vendor for the Family Computer and its title for this console, Lode Runner, sold 1.2 million units after its 1984 release.[14]
The business continued developing video games on the Famicom and computer platforms (MSX, NEC PC-8801 and ZX Spectrum, among others). Bomberman was released in December of this year on the Famicom and was considered a "big hit" by Hudson Soft.[15]
In July 1987, Hudson developed the "C62 System" and collaborated with NEC to develop the PC Engine video game console. It achieved a second-best success to Famicom in Japan, but its release as the TurboGrafx-16 in North America had less market share than the new Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis. In 1990, Hudson Soft developed and published video games for an array of systems. In 1994, the 32-bit semiconductor chip "HuC62" was independently developed by Hudson and used in NEC's PC-FX video game console.
In 2004, Hudson started a joint venture with Flying Tiger Entertainment for 25 titles.[16]
Hudson Soft relocated its main office to the Midtown Tower in Tokyo in 2005, although the Sapporo headquarters remained in operation as a secondary office.
Hudson Soft lost several key people starting in the mid-2000s. Co-founder Hiroshi Kudo left the company in November 2004 following financial losses. Shinichi Nakamoto, who was with the company since 1978 and creator of the Bomberman series, followed suit in 2006. Veteran Takahashi Meijin resigned in May 2011; he had joined Hudson Soft in 1982.[17] Around 2010–2011, many employees migrated to Nintendo's restructured Nd Cube subsidiary which was headed by Hidetoshi Endo, himself a former Hudson Soft president.
Relationship with Konami
The relation between Hudson Soft and Konami can be traced to at least as early as 1985, when Hudson ported Konami's arcade game Pooyan to the MSX and Family Computer. But the acquisition process of Hudson Soft by Konami would only begin in 2001.
Hudson Soft was severely hit by the collapse of its main bank Hokkaido Takushoku.[18] Seeking new financing alternatives, Hudson Soft entered the stock market for the first time in December 2000, listing on the NASDAQ Japan Exchange.[19] This led to Konami purchasing a stock allocation of 5.6 million shares in August 2001, becoming the company's largest shareholder. Within the terms of this purchase, Hudson acquired the Sapporo division of Konami Computer Entertainment Studio, renaming it Hudson Studio.[20][21]
