Hudson, well known for its Bomberman and Deca Sports series, is to be fully absorbed by Konami on April 1 of this year.
Konami, the studio behind Castlevania, Dance Dance Revolution, Silent Hill and many other titles has been Hudson's parent company since April 2005, holding a 54% stake. The new arrangement will switch this to a 100% stake, and Hudson will become a wholly owned subsidiary via a stock swap.
On March 31, Hudson CEO Michihiro Ishizuka will resign and be replaced by Konami Digital Entertainment's Kazuhiko Uehara. According to reports, Konami hopes to benefit from Hudson's cell phone development knowledge and to make future strides in social gaming, and they're also looking into company name changes and possibilities for combining business operations.
[source andriasang.com]
Comments 24
I hope better games coming from Hudson comes out of this since Konami have been making a lot of great games recently.
I sure hope the Hudson name doesn't die... I can't imagine turning on a Bomberman and seeing any other start up logo. Just the thought pains me ;_;
Mario Party by Konami?
@3 About to say the same thing.
They will probs still keep Hudson, it will just be a company owned by Konami.
@1: Are you serious?! I can't believe anybody actually thinking that way. To me Konami has been nothing but a s***fest for over a decade with only the odd game to be good, with the majority being nothing but utter disappointments. Hudson on the other hand still mostly delivers worthwhile stuff.
On topic: I thought Hudson would already have been fully absorbed, so I'm not exactly shocked. ^^
Metal Gear Bomberman with playable Solid Snake, & Contra Adventure Island!! Woohooo!
I hope this doesnt mean Mario Party will die. Maybe Konami can make it better than Hudson can. And I hope Konami will speed up the release of Mario Party 1 and 3 on VC, not slow it down further or not release it at all.
They did release some good stuff on WiiWare, also don't forget Kororinpa!
But yeah, as much as I'd like to see Hudson stop releasing yearly updates of Bomberman, it would be sad to turn one on and not see the Hudson Bee.
Konami Hudson? :3
As long as it ends up being better than the Square-Enix and Namco Bandai ones and don't ruin Konami's games I'm ok with it.
Not top of my list, but.....
The same thing happened with Taito and Square-Enix, so its not that bad of a shock. The way I see it, it's just two of my favorite companies merging together into one!
Eventually all the good 3rd party NES companies that are still left will unite under Capcom, Konami, and Squenix. All that matters to me is if we're still going to get all those classic Hudson games ported to the 3DS like Bomberman Hero (extremely underrated).
RE: Mario Party
The original Mario Party devs (who have been with the series from the beginning) already left Hudson to form a small development group owned by Nintendo, which recently developed Wii Party.
[source: Iwata Asks: Wii Party]
@6 KeeperBvK Are you serious? A decade's worth of Suikodens, Castlevanias, Silent Hills, Metal Gears, Beatmanias, Dance Dance Revolutions, Gradiuses and Contra 4 just aren't enough for you? What kind of mind-blowing publishers have you been following? (Well apart from Capcom. But they're a special case.)
On the plus side, Parodius would include Hudson's line up too including Star Soldier and Bomberman, Star Parodius?
Maybe this means a remake of Ninja Five O?
Wait a sec on April 1? This wouldn't by any chance be an April Fools joke would it?
hudsons only good offering was bomberman so i say meh.
Does this mean I wont be able to play Water Warfare 2? I'm serious. I really like that game. Over 170 hours(I expected that like the spanish inquisition).
Hey If we do get a Water Warfare 2 Could Snake be in it?( ^ - ^ )
The name Hudson has forever been a stand alone and they alone give love to all systems no matter what generation... hopefully under the Konami moniker, Konami won't force them to give very little to a Nintendo system as Konami does currently...
This is going to be very interesting. Hudson with Star Soldier, Konami with Gradius. A Star Soldier Gradius mixed game in the works?! starts to get a little excited
@HolyMackerel
Konami didn't make Contra 4, Suikoden's dead, Castlevania is practically dead, Silent Hill is a jumbled mess that keeps getting outsourced, DDR's the same thing repeatedly with different songs, Gradius is dead, and Metal Gear is milked to hell and back. You also forgot a few other franchises that Konami used to do, but since Konami doesn't even remember they exist, I doubt most gamers do.
So yeah, I agree with him. Konami sucks and has sucked for a long time. They're basically clinging to Kojima and offering nothing else to the gaming industry.
Unless you don't believe the producer of Rocket Knight (and the man responsible for Contra 4 existing at all) had to beg and plead for years for the game to get made only to get it outsourced and killed with a $15 price point.
Konami sucks.
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