Hudson Soft

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Hudson Soft is a Japanese publisher and developer, founded on May 18, 1973.

Although it began selling PC-related products in 1975, it wasn't until 1984, when Hudson began to produce video games for the Famicom (NES), that the company enjoyed notable success. Hudson's Famicom title, Lode Runner, sold 1.2 million units. However, the Bomberman series is their most successful, and has appeared at least once on all major platforms to date.

Hudson lead a joint venture with NEC to develop the family of PC Engine (Japan) and Turbografx-16 (North America) consoles. The PC Engine was successful in Japan, second only to Nintendo's Famicom. After a long history of producing games for Nintendo's consoles, Hudson teamed up with Nintendo's Japanese arm and founded the joint venture Manegi Corporation in May of 1998.

As of 2003, the company employs a staff of more than 400. They have recently re-released some of their first hit games for the Nintendo GameCube in Japan, including Adventure Island, Star Soldier, and Lode Runner.

In April 2005, Hudson Soft became a subsidiary of Konami.

On March 23, 2006, at the GDC Conference in California, it was announced by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata that Nintendo will offer virtual backward compatibility of the TurboGrafx-16 with their upcoming game console, the Wii.[1]

During an interview with IGN on May 11, 2006, Hudson Soft stated that they were currently in the process of acquiring the rights to games developed by now-defunct game developers. [1]

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