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It is interesting that Bandai Namco could be regarded as heir to the Atari lineage because Bandai Namco is also the most influential and important Japanese video game company of all time.

More influential than Capcom, Konami and SEGA? Yes. Even more influential than Nintendo? Emphatically, yes.

You see, Bandai Namco is the company behind Pac-Man – the most successful arcade game of all time. It’s estimated that over 10 billion coins have been used on Pac-Man arcade cabinets.

In an ironic twist of fate, the shoddy Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man was considered one of the biggest factor’s in Atari’s commercial downfall. Gamers were so outraged by the 2600 version of Pac-Man that many of them just gave up on gaming altogether. This contributed to the video game crash of 1983.

Namco was also the company behind Galaga, Pole Position, Xevious and more. A fairly obscure game, The Tower of Druaga, was one of the first action RPGs and directly influenced Zelda.

Later on, Namco made Ridge Racer, Tekken, and Time Crisis – all games that were core to the success of the PlayStation and Sony’s triumph over Nintendo and SEGA during the 32-bit era. Namco was so critical to PlayStation’s success that an early advertisement once said “PlayStation: Powered by Namco”.

The other company, Bandai, that merged with Namco is just as fascinating. They started off as a toy company that made action figures for Astro Boy, Ultraman, and Mobile Suit Gundam.

In 1983, they entered the video game market and were the first 3rd parties to the Famicom, the Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Most famously, they produced the Power Pad, a peripheral used for playing sports games like Stadium Events. They also brought several of their toy properties to the video game world, including Mobile Suit Gundam.

In the mid-90s, Bandai produced their one and only video game console: the Apple Pippin. Wait, Apple and Bandai made a video game console? Yep! And it’s one of the worst selling consoles of all time! Only 42,000 units were ever sold!

The Apple Pippin, though, was the only console to get Marathon, the seminal FPS made by Bungie – so this was Bungie’s first foray into the console market. Bungie was later acquired by Microsoft, and their next FPS was Halo – which became the most important game ever released for Xbox and critical to the Xbox’s success.

It’s ironic that Marathon couldn’t create success for the Apple Pippin but was almost single-handedly the reason Xbox became a success. Weird, isn’t it?

Because the Apple Pippin failed, Bandai went through financial trouble and sought to merge with SEGA. But Bandai employees revolted, saying that the family-friendly work culture didn’t mesh with SEGA’s top down corporate culture (rumours have it SEGA had involvement with the yakuza too).

Bandai then merged with Namco in 1996. In addition to video games, they also run amusement parks and make anime. Bandai Namco owns the rights to Gundam, Cowboy Bepop, Tiger & Bunny, and more. They are truly one of the biggest Japanese entertainment companies today.

Because of character count limitations, one thing I didn’t mention in the previous post is that in addition to Bandai Namco acquiring Atari Japan, they acquired both Atari Europe and Atari Australia in 2009.

Bandai Namco’s history is very weird but fascinating!