Namco

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Namco
Namco.png
Founded June 1, 1955
Headquarters Japan
Website www.namco.co.jp
Other Names
  • Namcot
  • Namco, Ltd.
  • Game Studio
  • Piccari Team
  • Knight Games

Namco (ナムコット株式会社 Namukotto Kabushikigaisha = Namcot Co., Ltd.) is a Japanese game developer and publisher. They are best known for their arcade classics such as the Pac-Man series. In 1981, Masanobu "Évezoō End" Endō joined and designed some of their games such as Xevious. However, he later left to form Game Studio, which worked closely with Namco. When they first started developing NES titles, the company did not yet have a division in the United States. Therefore, they licensed most of their games to Tengen, an American company which made unlicensed video games for the Nintendo NES.

Namco merged with Bandai on March 31, 2006, and is now known as Namco Bandai Games.


Games


Music Development

ARC

The sound engine for Namco's arcade games was programmed by various staff members, and Nobuyuki Ohnogi and the other composers wrote the music in hexadecimal. The sound chip was designed by someone named "Figar" Murata.

There was later a sound engine programmed titled "Quattro", which was a tracker-based system.

NES

Nobuyuki Ohnogi created a sound driver which was then rewritten by Fukashi Ohmorita to decrease the memory. The music was written with hex numbers in 6502 assembly. When Namco was porting their arcade games to the NES, Nobuyuki converted the arcade soundtracks to the NES until he left the company in 1985.

Later, one of Namco's main musicians Junko Ozawa learned NES programming and modified the sound driver to have better-sounding instruments.

SNES

It is unknown how music was made for the SNES at Namco. However, it is believed that Shinya Yamada programmed the sound driver because he is credited as a sound programmer in Super Batter Up.

Audio Personnel


Links

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