T&E Soft

From Sega Retro

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T&E Soft
Founded: 1982-10-14[1]
T-series code: T-114
Headquarters:
Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

T&E Soft (T&Eソフト), also known as Technology & Entertainment Software[2] was a Japanese video game developer based in Nagoya. It was founded by brothers Toshiro and Eiji Yokoyama (lending their initials to the the company's name), and is best known for producing the Hydlide series of RPGs, and golf simulation games utilising the company's "POLYSYS" technology.

History

T&E Soft was founded in October 1982[1] with the desire to create software for Japanese home computers, starting with NEC's PC-6000 series before branching out to other platforms in 1983. Early hits included one of the earliest Japanese action RPGs, Hydlide and its successors, the Legend of Star Arthur trilogy, and the multi-episode, multi-platform strategy game Daiva. Its games would be ported to home consoles starting in 1986 (albeit published by other companies), with the company moving into console self-publishing in 1990.

During the same year, T&E Soft purchased fellow computer game publisher Xtal Soft, turning them into the Osaka division of T&E Soft. In 1997, Square founder Masafumi Miyamoto, an acquaintance of the Yokoyama brothers, became the biggest shareholder of the company, making T&E Soft a sister company to Square for a short while.

In January 2001 the company signed a licensing agreement with The Walt Disney Company in order to produce an online game site, "Disney Wonderland"[3]. With this new focus, the company subsequently changed its name to D Wonderland Inc. in May 2002[3] and withdrew from the game publishing business. This company changed its name to Daikokuya Global Holding Co., Ltd. in 2015.

Toshiro Yokoyama would form two companies from the "old" T&E Soft's ashes; Deep Co., Ltd. and Digital Golf Co., Ltd.. Deep would later acquire the T&E Soft name in 2005, and be absorbed by Digital Golf in 2006. Digital Golf was split on 21st January 2008, and a "new" T&E Soft was formed[4]. This new company would exist until January 2013 when it was aborbed into Spike-Chunsoft.

Since March 2019, D4 Enterprise owns the rights to the "old" T&E Soft's back catalogue[5].

Softography

References

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NEC Retro has more information related to T&E Soft
  1. 1.0 1.1 http://tes.co.jp/company/index.htm (Wayback Machine: 1999-02-02 07:05)
  2. http://www.tes.co.jp/ (Wayback Machine: 1997-12-24 11:26)
  3. 3.0 3.1 http://www.dwonderland.co.jp/ (Wayback Machine: 2002-07-13 18:23)
  4. http://www.tandesoft.co.jp/company/profile.html (Wayback Machine: 2012-04-01 21:49)
  5. http://www.d4e.co.jp/20190304/2946