User:Namcokid47/Bandai Namco Entertainment

Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. (株式会社バンダイナムコエンターテインメント) is a Japanese multinational video game developer and publisher headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Its international divisions, Bandai Namco Entertainment America and Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe, are respectively headquartered in Santa Clara, California and Lyon, France. Bandai Namco Entertainment is a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings and is its core video game development division.

Bandai Namco Entertainment was founded as Namco Bandai Games (株式会社バンダイナムコゲームス) on March 31, 2006.

Origins (2005–2008)
In early 2005, video game developer Namco began merger talks with Bandai, Japan's largest toy and anime company. Namco had attempted to merge with another company since the early 2000s due to concerns over its financial status and not being able to survive as an independent company. Namco's executive chairman Masaya Nakamura and content production advisors resisted Bandai's offer over concerns towards their marketing strategy and lack of quality control. Shigeichi Ishimura, the president of Namco and Nakamura's son-in-law, pressured his father into supporting the merger. The two companies merged to form the entertainment conglomerate Bandai Namco Holdings (then Namco Bandai Holdings) in September 2005. Namco became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco, as the latter began preparations for a full business integration of Namco and Bandai's game production operations.

On March 31, 2006, Namco merged with the video game publishing division of Bandai to form Namco Bandai Games, marking the completion of the Namco Bandai merger and ending the original Namco company. Earlier that year on January 4, Namco and Bandai's North American game divisions―Namco Hometek and Bandai Games―merged into Namco Bandai Games America. Ishikawa became the president of Namco Bandai Games, while Shin Unozawa, the former president of Bandai Visual, was promoted vice president. Namco Bandai Games was established to unify Namco and Bandai's video game divisions into one company, becoming the core company within Namco Bandai Holdings' Game Contents Strategic Business Unit (SBU). The company was headquartered in the Yaguchi ward of Ōta, Tokyo, housed in the same office as the original Namco. Unozawa mandated that the company needed to remain competitive in a constantly changing industry in order to avoid the financial struggles its predecessors endured in the past. Namco Bandai Games would continue publishing games under the Namco and Bandai brands to signify the history and value behind them.

Among Namco Bandai Games' first releases was Mobile Suit Gundam: Bonds of the Battlefield (2006), a first-person shooter arcade game developed in partnership with subsidiary Banpresto. It released Ridge Racer 7 as a launch title for the PlayStation 3 later in the year, which is credited as the first video game to implement a 60 frames per second running speed in conjunction with a 1080p resolution. Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire was released at the same time, which performed well commercially but received largely negative reviews. The party game Ennichi no Tatsujin and the action game SD Gundam: Scad Hammers were released as launch titles for the Wii in December. A subsidiary named Cellius was established in March 2007 through a joint venture with Sony Computer Entertainment. Cellius was created to design games that showed off the hardware potential of the PlayStation 3, and "help take share from Microsoft and Nintendo." Namco Bandai Games sold its majority stake in developer Monolith Soft, which created the Xenosaga series for Namco, to Nintendo in April, due to creative differences between the two. The following month, its head office moved to Shinagawa, Tokyo as a means to bring the company and its subsidiaries under one building. Previously, its office served as a research facility belonging to Panasonic. Namco Bandai Games achieved strong success in arcades with Animal Kaiser, an animal-themed trading card game for Bandai's Data Carddass card dispensing arcade cabinets.

Namco Bandai Games regularly released several successful games during the late 2000s. It published Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (2007)for the Xbox 360, which was commercially successful and received praise for its innovation and graphical style. Pac-Man Championship Edition (2007), a reboot of its Pac-Man series, increased sales of the Xbox 360 in Japan, a platform struggling to gain any sizeable market share in the country. We Ski (2008) was the first third-party Wii game to make use of the system's Balance Board peripheral, and sold 1.2 million copies worldwide by the end of the year. The fighting game Soulcalibur IV (2008) sold over two million copies on launch week and topped sales charts for the month of August.

In November, Namco Bandai Games announced their intent to absorb and merge with Banpresto. Originally known as Coreland in the early 1980's, Banpresto was a division of Bandai that published video games based on licensed anime franchises, such as Gundam, Ar Tonelico, and Super Robot Wars. They were also a producer of figurines and toys, working with brands like Sailor Moon and Super Mario. Banpresto had already been acquired by Namco Bandai Games after the merge, who allowed the company to continue their normal operations. On April 1, Banpresto's video game operations were officially integrated into those of Namco Bandai Games, with Banpresto becoming the toy production department of the company. The brand continued to be used for video game products, often those based on older Banpresto franchises to signify their legacy. Namco Bandai Games America announced a new publishing label, named Surge, at the end of the year, as part of its efforts in creating content that detracted from their Japanese import games based on anime licenses. Surge was made to appeal specifically for Western audiences, and was to be for edgy, "hyper-violent" action games. Afro Samurai, released in early 2009, was the only game to use the label. It received mixed reviews, and no other games released since used the Surge name.

Acquisitions and business expansion (2009–2011)
Namco Bandai Games continued to expand their operations and acquisitions throughout the remainder of the decade. In February 2009, it announced its intention to acquire a 75% stake in Japanese company D3 Publisher, who are known for their Simple budget game series. Namco Bandai detailed in a public statement that they believed D3 would thrive from the acquisition, due to Bandai's wide reaches in mediums such as literature, television, and film, and be given the exclusive rights to use Namco characters and series in their Simple games. D3 approved of the deal in March, with Namco Bandai acquiring a 95% stake in the company's share for $12.55 million, effectively making D3 a wholly-owned subsidiary. Online game distribution services were becoming a high priority for the company, thanks in part due to the success of networks like Xbox Live. As such, Namco Bandai began focusing on bringing games based on their older franchises, such as Mr. Driller W, Xevious Resurrection, and Korogashi Puzzle Katamari Damacy to platforms such as PlayStation Network and DSiWare. On April 1, Bandai Networks, the mobile phone division of Bandai, was dissolved and absorbed into Namco Bandai's own mobile phone operations. Namco Bandai obtained the exclusive video game rights for the Dragon Ball franchise from Toei Animation in June. The acquisition followed Toei's licensing deal with Atari over the Dragon Ball video game series in America expiring; Bandai and Banpresto held the rights to it in Japan since 1986. Dragon Ball video games have sold over 50 million copies, making it one of the company's best-selling video game franchises of all time.

The company quickly rose to becoming one of the top video game publishers worldwide, partly due to the success of several hit games. Demon's Souls, developed by FromSoftware for the PlayStation 3, was published in 2009 by Namco Bandai Games in PAL regions. The game was a commercial and critical success internationally, leading Namco Bandai to publish its sequels in North America and forming a strong relationship with FromSoftware. Tekken 6, the sixth installment in the Tekken fighting game franchise, sold over two million copies on consoles and received positive reviews from critics. Namco Bandai's arcade games were also performing well, with games such as Tank! Tank! Tank! and Animal Kaiser being released to strong sales and making for a large portion of their annual revenue. One of the company's most-successful games of the era was the fourth mainline installment in the Soulcalibur series, Soulcalibur IV. It topped sales charts in Europe alone, was released to a favorable reception, and sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide in one week. Their output for the Wii, which included titles like Taiko no Tatsujin Wii and We Ski, had also done well both commercially and critically.

Corporate structure
Bandai Namco Entertainment is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It shares the same building as its parent company Bandai Namco Holdings and other smaller divisions, titled the "Bandai Namco Future Laboratory". The company has several international offices, including those in Santa Clara, California (Bandai Namco Entertainment America), Lyon, France (Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe), Seoul, South Korea (Bandai Namco Entertainment Korea), Asia (Bandai Namco Entertainment Asia), and in Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, and mainland China. Many of these are contractor companies or publishers, releasing games for developers that do not possess any divisions within those countries.

Bandai Namco Entertainment is the third-largest video game developer and publisher by revenue in Japan, and is the eighth-largest by revenue in the world. It is the central video game production branch of Bandai Namco Holdings, and is the core development area of its parent's "Content Strategic Business Unit" (Content SBU). Bandai Namco Entertainment is also one of the largest providers of mobile phone games and apps in the world, generating over $5 million in revenue yearly. The company's corporate slogan is "more fun for everyone", referencing its efforts in creating content and software that appeals to audiences worldwide. One of Bandai Namco Entertainment's core policies is to maintain strong, mutual connections between its developers and subsidiaries, as a means to prevent confusion or disruption from either party.

Subsidiaries
Bandai Namco Entertainment is the central game production arm of its parent, though the actual development of games is led by Bandai Namco Studios. Established in 2012, Studios works as the game development division of the company, with Bandai Namco Entertainment taking on the marketing and publishing duties for its games. Bandai Namco Studios is headquartered in Kōtō, Tokyo, a few blocks away from its parent company. The subsidiary also has divisions based out of Singapore and Malaysia, named Bandai Namco Studios Singapore and Bandai Namco Studios Malaysia respectively. Bandai Namco Online, founded in 2009, handles the production and publishing of online video games for Japan and other parts of Asia. Other subsidiaries include Bandai Namco Sevens, which produce pachinko and slot machines; Bandai Namco Network Services, which provide online distribution network maintenance and services; Bandai Namco Research, which develops technology for use by other companies within Bandai Namco Holdings; and Bandai Namco Rights Marketing, which produce promotional videos, advertising campaigns, and telecommunication services.

B.B. Studio has developed and co-published games for franchises such as Digimon, Gundam, and Super Robot Wars, as well as those based on licensed characters from companies like Disney and Square Enix. The company was founded in 2011 from the merge between BEC and Banpresoft, the former game development division of Banpresto. D3 Publisher is known for its Simple series of budget titles, which cover various game genres, from puzzle games, to platformers, to shoot 'em ups, to video board games. D3 also held the video game rights to Cartoon Network television shows until it was sold to Little Orbit in 2014. The American division of D3 was rebranded as D3 Go! in 2015, which focuses on games for mobile phones. Vibe is a marketing agency that specializes specifically in production of videos and other interactive forms of advertisement for various different mediums, mainly those relating to video games. Vibe has worked with several multi-national companies, including Google, Softbank, NTT Docomo, and Apple. BXD, formed from a partnership between Bandai Namco and Drecom, creates online browser games based on Bandai Namco game franchises.

Software research and development
As one of the largest Japanese video game publishers, Bandai Namco Entertainment has produced over 300 video games, many of which are those for home video game consoles and arcades. They have also created over 60 video game franchises, many of which are among the best-selling of all time, and 40 arcade systems and video game hardware. Bandai Namco Entertainment's best-selling video game franchise is Tekken with over 49 million copies across all platforms, while Pac-Man is its highest-grossing franchise with over US$12.8 billion as of 2016. Other franchises include Galaxian, Gundam, Ace Combat, Soulcalibur, Xevious, Dig Dug, Tales, The Idolmaster, Katamari, Ridge Racer, and Taiko no Tatsujin. In addition, Bandai Namco Entertainment owns the video game licenses for numerous Japanese media franchises, particularly those from Shonen Jump manga series and anime by Toei Animation; these include Naruto, Dragon Ball, One Piece, and My Hero Academia. Bandai Namco Entertainment has also established working relations with other game developers, such as Monolith Soft, Nintendo, FromSoftware, Sega, and Square Enix. Throughout the years it has acquired the rights to franchises from other developers, including Xenosaga from Monolith Soft and Dark Souls from FromSoftware.

Bandai Namco Entertainment manages different project teams for specific franchises, such as Project Souls for the Soulcalibur series and Project Aces for the Ace Combat series. Most of its game development comes from Bandai Namco Studios, instead of relying on other publishers or smaller divisions. The company keeps most of its operations in-house, only outsourcing production to larger companies or smaller divisions within Bandai Namco Holdings. Divisions within Bandai Namco Entertainment are encouraged to create new, interesting ideas and innovative concepts, such as new intellectual properties or experimenting with pre-existing ones.