Namco Almost 50, Ups Profit, Shows Taiko

Posted by simoniker on Thursday May 20, 2004 @04:45AM from the gobbling-the-dollar-ghosts dept.

Thanks to GameSpot for its short piece noting Namco is preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary as a company, after it "started out small, building two wooden-horse rides on the rooftop of a department store in Yokohama", before it "released the arcade title Pac-Man [in 1980], which established a dominant position for the company in the gaming industry." IGN PS2 also has Namco's 2003 financial results, which were "higher than those of previous years", with a 8,500,000,000 yen (USD$75 million) profit, after "Soul Calibur 2 performed well worldwide, with the Taiko no Tatsujin drumming game crossing the two million mark across its four PS2 titles." The company's official E3 site has been showcasing its recently announced titles, including the newly unveiled Tekken 5, as well as the quietly shown U.S.-localized Taiko Drum Master, which 1UP notes "may be a hard sell to American gamers whose definition of 'rhythm action' begins and ends with the frenetic aerobics of Dance Dance Revolution", even notwithstanding increased American interest [free reg. req.] in taiko drumming.

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Katamari Damancii by Blackwulf · 2004-05-20 05:29 · Score: 2, Informative

Namco also quietly showed Katamari Damancii (spelled Damancy on the show floor), a game previously featured on Slashdot Games where you roll around the ball and gobble up things. I played that game for most of Day 3.

They really, really need to bring that game to America before I just import it and put it next to the 4 Taiko no-Tatsujin games I already own. :>