I4 Corporation

I4 Corporation
Founded	1982-06-11
Closed	2007-04-01
Headquarters

i4 Corporation (株式会社アイフォー, stylized as i4) was a former Japanese game development studio. There are actually two companies called i4 that are related to each other. The company was founded in 1982 by Keiichi Sakamoto (坂本桂一), and was called Something Good (式会社サムシンググッドを設立). The company started out by making software for making postcards. In 1998, the company introduced the electronic payment software WebMoney, which later became its own company. In 1999, the company changed their name to i4 Corporation. In 1996, the company merged with ASCII to become ASCII Something Good. The company became insolvent in 2002, and was subsequently liquidated at the end of June 2003. They transferred business rights related to software development and sales business to Mastermind Inc. The company changed its name from i4 to Last Summer Holdings, Inc.

The "new" i4 was established on March 24, 1988. On June 30, 2003, they acquired business rights from the former company. They then reverted the name Mastermind Inc. back to i4. The next day, they began operations.They relocated their head office to Shirokane, Minato-ku, Tokyo. However, a year later, the company was acquired by eFrontier and subsequently became a subsidiary for the company. In September 2004, the company relocated to Shinjuku. On April 1, 2007, eFrontier merged i4 with itself and other companies, and the company ceased to exist.

In the world of video games, the company was primarily known for producing both Shogi and Go video games, and are known for the AI Go and AI Shogi series. The surviving business was absorbed by eFrontier.

Links

• ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/アイフォー - Wikipedia (Japanese).