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Curated category

Japanese brands

  • PlayStation (console)On the morning of the 27th of January 1991, Howard Lincoln stepped onto a stage in Las Vegas and announced that Nintendo had abandoned its partnership with…
  • SegaOn the 3rd of June 1960, Martin Bromley and Richard Stewart established a new company in Tokyo to take over the assets of Service Games of Japan.
  • FujifilmIn 1934, Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. emerged as a subsidiary of Daicel within Tokyo, Japan. The company began its life manufacturing photographic films for the…
  • PokémonSatoshi Tajiri was born on the 28th of August 1965 in Machida, a suburb of Tokyo. He spent his childhood collecting insects and small creatures in the ponds…
  • PlayStation ClassicSony Interactive Entertainment unveiled the PlayStation Classic at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2018. The console officially launched on the 3rd of…
  • NintendoOn the 23rd of September 1889, a craftsman named Fusajiro Yamauchi founded a small unincorporated establishment in Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto.
  • Japan AirlinesJapan Airlines opened its doors on the 1st of August 1951 with an initial capital of ¥100 million. The government recognized a need for reliable air…
  • KodanshaSeiji Noma established Kodansha in 1909 as a spin-off of the Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai, also known as the Greater Japan Oratorical Society.
  • Dragon QuestIn 1982, Enix sponsored a video game programming contest in Japan that brought together the team who would create Dragon Quest.
  • Square EnixSquare Enix began as two separate entities with distinct origins. Enix was founded on the 22nd of September 1975, by Yasuhiro Fukushima, an architect turned…
  • PlayStationSony executive Ken Kutaragi managed one of the company's hardware engineering divisions before becoming known as "The Father of the PlayStation".
  • SNKEikichi Kawasaki stood in a small office in Osaka on the 22nd of July 1978 and signed papers to reorganize Shin Nihon Kikaku into a stock company.
  • SonyIn 1946, Masaru Ibuka opened a small electronics shop inside the Shirokiya department store building in Tokyo's Nihonbashi district.
  • KonamiKagemasa Kōzuki opened a small business in Toyonaka, Osaka, on the 21st of March 1969. He rented and repaired jukeboxes for local bars and restaurants.
  • NamcoOn the 1st of June 1955, Japanese businessman Masaya Nakamura founded a company in Ikegami, Tokyo. The son of a shotgun repair business owner, Nakamura…
  • CapcomKenzo Tsujimoto stood at the helm of Irem Corporation in 1979 when he established a new entity called I.R.M. Corporation on the 30th of May 1979.
  • Final FantasyHironobu Sakaguchi stood at the edge of a career cliff in 1987. Square, the company he worked for, faced financial trouble and potential bankruptcy.