Namco

Namco Ltd. (株式会社ナムコ, Kabushiki Kaisha Namuko; alternatively ナムコ) is a video game publisher and developer founded in Tokyo, Japan as Nakamura Manufacturing in 1955.

Initially focused on mechanical toys for children, Namco moved into the video game industry and released their first game, Gee Bee in 1978. Since then they have been responsible for some of the most revolutionary and successful games released in the last thirty years, including Galaxian, the first full RGB-colour video game and Pac-Man, one of the most iconic video games of all time. Other big franchises owned by Namco include the Ridge Racer and Tekken brands.

For a brief period in the early 1990s Namco operated under the name "Namcot" when dealing with home console video games.

Namco also distributed their own Sega NAOMI and Sega Chihiro systems and was one of the three Triforce partners (along with Sega and Nintendo).

On September 29, 2005, Namco's management was merged with that of Bandai to create Namco Bandai Holdings Inc., the third largest video game entity in Japan.