Bandai

Bandai Company, Limited (株式会社バンダイ) is a Japanese toy making and video game company, as well as the producer of a large number of plastic model kits. It is the world's third-largest producer of toys (after Mattel and Hasbro). Some ex-Bandai group companies produce anime and tokusatsu programs. Its headquarters is located in Taitō, Tokyo.

After the merger with game developer and amusement facility operator Namco, Bandai Company, Limited is now under the management of Namco Bandai Holdings and a member of Bandai Namco Group. After group reorganisation in 2006, Bandai heads the group's Toys and Hobby Strategic Business Unit (SBU).

History
Bandai was founded in 1950. In the 1960s Bandai expanded to include export sales. Bandai's racing car set, which first appeared in 1962, became a huge success. The 1970s continued to see Bandai expand, with Bandai Models being established in 1971. Although not their most profitable range, Bandai's 1/48 scale AFV models dominated that segment of the model kit market. Bandai America Inc. was established as local US sales/marketing operation in 1978. Since the 1980s, Bandai has become the leading toy company of Japan, and to this day, has the main toy licenses in Japan to popular properties including Daikaiju, Ultraman, Super Robot, Kamen Rider, the Super Sentai and Power Rangers series (which they took part in creating), Gundam and many others. The management of Bandai and Sega discussed a merger in the late 1990s, but the merger was later cancelled, citing "cultural differences".

Former subsidiaries
Before the formation of Namco Bandai Holdings, Bandai had many subsidiaries. After group reorganization in 2006, they are managed under several strategic business units (SBUs) of the group. Further detail:

Bandai USA
Bandai USA (doing business as Bandai America) is the American distribution arm of Bandai that makes toy products for the U.S. market and manufactures Power Rangers, Digimon, and Ben 10 toys. Other past products include


 * Alienators: Evolution Continues
 * Astro Boy
 * Beetleborgs
 * Ben 10
 * Cardcaptor Sakura
 * Cyclonians
 * Dick Tracy (film)
 * D.I.C.E.
 * Dinozaurs
 * Digimon
 * Dragon Ball
 * Dragon Ball Z
 * Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
 * Godaikin
 * Godzilla
 * Gundam
 * Kamen Rider Dragon Knight
 * Masked Rider
 * Mega Man
 * Magical DoReMi
 * One Piece
 * Power Rangers
 * Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
 * Sailor Moon
 * Saint Seiya - for American distribution, it was relabeled Knights of The Zodiac
 * Sega Pico
 * Strawberry Shortcake
 * Tamagotchi
 * Teen Titans
 * Thundercats
 * Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends
 * The Tick
 * The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog
 * Ultimate Muscle
 * Unazukin
 * Wedding Peach
 * Xyber 9: New Dawn
 * Zatch Bell!

Bandai Visual
Bandai Visual Company, Limited, produces and distributes many popular anime and tokusatsu titles. These titles include Cowboy Bebop, Big O, Outlaw Star, Please Teacher!, Escaflowne, and the popular Gundam, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and Super Sentai series. The company logo is the Moai, a statue found on Easter Island. It now heads the Visual and Music Contents SBU. Their American division, Bandai Visual USA was absorbed into Bandai Entertainment in July 2008. Bandai Entertainment is no longer acquiring licenses to new anime. As of March 1, 2013 Bandai Entertainment is no longer distributing home video in North America.

Bandai Entertainment
Bandai Entertainment, Inc. was involved in the distribution of numerous anime in North America, as well as manga and other merchandising ventures related to anime. Its headquarters in the United States were located in Cypress, California until it shut down in March 2013.

Carddass
Carddass is the Bandai subsidiary responsible for releasing trading card games based on popular Bandai franchises. This includes games such as the Gundam War Collectible Card Game based on the Gundam metaseries, as well as a Gash Bell (Zatch Bell!) TCG, Naruto CCG, Rangers Strike (Super Sentai Series, Kamen Rider Series, Metal Hero Series), Neon Genesis Evangelion Ultra Galaxy Daikaijyu Battle (Ultra Series) and most recently their most successful to date, the Battle Spirits Trading Card Game.

Bandai Games (Now Namco Bandai Games)
Bandai Games produced and distributed video games based on Bandai properties including Mobile Suit Gundam: Zeonic Front, Gundam Wing: Endless Duel and Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo. In the beginning of 2005, Bandai Games opened a United States office as a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai America which, prior to that, handled the publishing of video games in North America itself.

On March 31, 2006, it was merged into Namco Ltd. and Namco Ltd. was renamed Namco Bandai Games Inc.

Motorsports


In 2006, Bandai entered Super GT with Lexus SC, and won 2006 Super GT Season GT500 Class Round 3 Overall Winner and ranked on fifth place in GT500 Class.

Consoles
During the late 1970s, Bandai sold the TV Jack console line: a series of pong based consoles. The last of the series was the Bandai Super Vision 8000 console released in 1979. It wasn't a simple pong based console system but a cartridge system with an 8-bit NEC D780C (Z80 clone) as CPU.

During the early 1980s, Bandai distributed a number of videogame machines. In 1982 the Bandai Arcadia, a variant of the Emerson Arcadia 2001, was released in Japan by Bandai. There were also four Japan-exclusive game releases which were the only known Arcadia titles written by other companies than UA Ltd. They also released local variants of the Intellivision and vectrex game consoles.

Bandai produced a running mat called the Family Fun Fitness System for the Nintendo Entertainment System starting in 1986. A series of games was released both in the US and in Japan, including Athletic World and Stadium Events for the NES. Shortly after its release, Nintendo purchased the rights to the FFF mat in North America, replacing it with their own redesign, the Power Pad. In order to maintain branding continuity, Stadium Events was pulled from shelves after a short period of availability at Woolworth's stores. Due to the fact that the game was pulled from shelves and discontinued before many copies were sold, Bandai's Stadium Events is universally accepted as the rarest licensed NES game released in North America. A shrinkwrapped copy of the game sold for $41,270 on eBay in February 2010. The sister game to Stadium Events, called Athletic World was initially released with a label that indicated compatibility with the Family Fun Fitness mat, but was later re-released with an updated label that mentions the Power Pad instead. Stadium Events was not released again, but instead was slightly modified and relaunched as the Power Pad pack-in game, World Class Track Meet.

In the '90s, Bandai teamed up with Apple to make The Pippin. They also made their own game console, the Playdia. Neither was a mass-market success. In 1999, Bandai created the WonderSwan portable game system. It, and its update, the WonderSwan Color, sold modestly well, but were unable to seriously challenge the dominant Game Boy Color and later, the Game Boy Advance. It was discontinued in 2003.

Handheld systems
Bandai has also released a series of handheld game consoles including the WonderSwan, WonderSwan Color and Swan Crystal. The systems were only released in Japan.

Bandai has also released a series of LCD games including Tuttuki Bako (released in Japan in 2008) and the LCD Solarpower series (released in the 1980s in both regions).

Games developed/published by Bandai
Bandai Super Vision 8000
 * Beam Galaxian
 * Gun Professional
 * Missile Vader
 * Othello
 * PacPacBird
 * Space Fire
 * Submarine

Arcadia 2001
 * Doraemon
 * Dr. Slump
 * Mobile Soldier Gundam
 * Super Dimension Fortress Macross

Bandai RX-78
 * Gundam: Luna Tsu no Tatakai

Mac OS
 * The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime

Playdia
 * Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon S Quiz Taiketsu! Sailor Power Kesshuu
 * Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS Sailor Moon to Hiragana Lesson!
 * Bishōjo Senshi Sailormoon SS Sailor Moon to Hajimete no Eigo
 * Bishōjo Senshi Sailormoon SS Youkoso! Sailor Youchien

3DO
 * Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon S

Sega Game Gear
 * Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon S

Game Boy
 * Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
 * Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
 * Welcome Nakayoshi Park
 * Kaijū-ō Godzilla

NES
 * Adventures of Gilligan's Island
 * Akuma-kun: Makai no Wana
 * Athletic World
 * Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach
 * Chubby Cherub
 * Dick Tracy
 * Dig Dug II (The NES version of Dig Dug I was only released in Japan, until the Wii Virtual Console release in the US in June 2008.)
 * Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
 * Dragon Power
 * Dragon Spirit
 * Dragon Spirit: The New Legend
 * Dynowarz
 * Frankenstein: The Monster Returns
 * Galaga
 * J. League Super Top Players
 * Legends of the Diamond (Typo on the top label states Legends of the Daimond [sic])
 * Monster Party
 * M.U.S.C.L.E. (video game)
 * Ninja Kid
 * Shooting Range
 * Stadium Events (Later pulled from shelves and retooled as World Class Track Meet)
 * Street Cop
 * Super Team Games
 * The Rocketeer
 * Toxic Crusaders
 * World Class Track Meet
 * Xevious

Nintendo DS
 * Power Rangers Samurai (video game)
 * Tamagotchi Corner Shop 1
 * Tamagotchi Corner Shop 2
 * Tamagotchi Corner Shop 3

Sega Genesis
 * Dragonball Z: Sagas of Bravery

SNES
 * Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon S Kurukkurin
 * Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon S Kondowa Puzzle de Oshioikiyo!
 * Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS Fuwa Fuwa Panic
 * Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Fuwa Fuwa Panic 2
 * Captain Tsubasa J: The Way to World Youth
 * Dragonball Z Super Butoden
 * Dragon Ball Z Super Butoden 2
 * Dragonball Z Super Butoden 3
 * Gon
 * Kamen Rider
 * Mazinger Z
 * Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
 * Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition
 * Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
 * Panic in Nakayoshi World
 * Power Rangers Zeo: Battle Racers
 * Ruin Arm
 * Shōnin yo Taishi wo Idake!!
 * Ultraman: Towards the Future

PlayStation
 * Captain Tsubasa J: Get In The Tomorrow
 * Digimon World
 * Digimon World 2
 * Digimon World 3
 * Digimon Rumble Arena
 * DragonBall:Final Bout
 * From TV Animation: One Piece Grand Battle!2
 * Kids Station: Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon World Chibiusa to tanoshii mainichi
 * Scooby-Doo Arcade

PlayStation 2
 * .hack
 * D.I.C.E.
 * Digimon Rumble Arena 2
 * Digimon World 4
 * Digimon World Data Squad
 * Eureka Seven vol.1: New Wave
 * InuYasha: Feudal Combat
 * Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space
 * Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs. Zeon
 * Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo
 * Mobile Suit Gundam Seed: Never Ending Tomorrow
 * Mobile Suit Gundam: Zeonic Front
 * Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam
 * MS Saga: A New Dawn
 * One Piece: Grand Adventure
 * One Piece Grand Battle!
 * Scooby-Doo Adventure
 * Space Sheriff Spirits
 * The Fast and the Furious, 2006 (Published as Namco Bandai Games and distributed by Universal Interactive)
 * Zatch Bell! Mamodo Battles
 * Zatch Bell! Mamodo Fury
 * Ultraman Nexus(video game)

Playstation 3
 * Demon's Souls
 * Dark Souls

Sega Saturn
 * DragonBall Z:Shin Butoden

Nintendo GameCube
 * Chibi-Robo! (in Japan)
 * One Piece: Grand Adventure
 * One Piece Grand Battle!
 * Zatch Bell! Mamodo Battles
 * Zatch Bell! Mamodo Fury
 * Digimon Rumble Arena 2

Wii
 * One Piece: Unlimited Adventure
 * Power Rangers Samurai (video game)

Virtual reality / Augmented reality
 * Mugen Puchipuchi
 * Tamagotchi Connection
 * Tuttuki Bako

Xbox 360
 * Dynasty Warriors: Gundam
 * Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2
 * Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3
 * Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit
 * Dragon Ball Raging Blast
 * Dragon Ball Raging Blast 2
 * Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi
 * Power Rangers Super Samurai (Kinect video game)
 * Zegapain NOT
 * Zegapain XOR

Game Boy Advance
 * Digimon Battle Spirit
 * Digimon Battle Spirit 2
 * Digimon Racing
 * Zatch Bell! Electric Arena