Sunsoft

Sunsoft
Founded	April 16, 1971
Headquarters	Japan
Website	sun-denshi.co.jp/soft
Other Names	Sun Corporation, サン電子 (Sun Denshi)

Sunsoft (サンソフト Sansofuto) is a division of Sun Corporation. The company was founded in 1971, though they didn't enter the video game market until 1978. In addition to developing or producing hundreds of video games, they also developed hardware for the gaming industry, including the 5B audio chip for their own games.

Games

• Games developed by Sunsoft.
• Games published by Sunsoft.

Music Development

NES

The sound driver was first created by Akito Takeuchi and later by Naohisa Morota. The final revision was done by Shinichi Seya. The music was written originally in assembly. In Nantetatte Baseball, it is revealed that the driver was reprogrammed to use Music Macro Language. Sunsoft was one of the few companies who used the DPCM channel of the 2A03 for pitched instruments; the best known of which being the picked and slap bass they used. However, they would also use the channel for drums and percussion as well.

Shinichi Seya explained the source of the digitized bass samples used in the later games:

“

The original sound source of the sampling base of Sunsoft's NES is using the sound source of AKAI's old sampler.

It was AKAI S700. It is what Nobuyuki Hara had. It was either Morota or Hara that said to use sampling BASS. I have created a tool that converts to sampled data suitable for NES and a program that can play sampling base with MML.

Hara and Morota were optimizing sound source and data size suitable for NES.

„

SNES

Like most other developers, Sunsoft used their own version of Nintendo's Kankichi-kun sound driver and software.

Audio Personnel

• Akihiro Asada - Sound programmer.
• Akito Takeuchi - Sound programmer for Sunsoft's FDS/NES sound driver.
• Atsushi Mihiro - Composer, sound designer.
• Atsushi Takada - Composer, sound designer.
• Chiaki Kato - Composer, sound designer.
• Hiroaki Koi - Composer.
• Hirokatsu Fujii - Sound effects designer for Nazoler Land Dai 2 Gou (FDS).
• Hiroshi Tsukamoto - Composer, sound designer, sound programmer.
• Hodaka Ohmori - Credited for "Sound Program / SE" with Naohisa on Freedom Force (NES).
• Izumi Hara - Sound programmer.
• Kazuo Nii - Composer, sound designer, sound programmer.
• Kengo Sakurai - Sound designer, sound programmer
• Kenichi Hirata - Composer, sound designer, sound programmer.
• Ko Arakawa - Sound programmer.
• Manabu Sakota - Composer/sound programmer for Journey to Silius (NES).
• Manami Matsumae - Composer, sound designer, sound programmer.
• Masashi Kageyama - Composer.
• Masato Araikawa - Composer, sound designer.
• Naohisa Morota - Sound designer, sound programmer.
• Naomasa Nakata - Sound designer, sound programmer.
• Naoki Kodaka - Primary composer.
• Nobuyuki Hara - Secondary composer, sound designer, sound programmer.
• Noriaki Urata - Sound programmer.
• Satoshi Asano - Composer, sound designer.
• Shinichi Seya - Sound designer, sound programmer.
• Takayuki Sasaki - Composer.
• Yoshiki Yamasaki - Sound effects designer for Nazoler Land Soukangou (FDS).

Hardware

Sound Devices

At Sunsoft, Akihiro Asada designed the 5B audio chip used in the game Gimmick! (FC).

Links

• sun-denshi.co.jp/soft - Official Japanese website.
• sunsoftgames.com - Official English website.
• mobygames.com/company/sun-corporation - MobyGames.
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunsoft - Wikipedia.