Bandai and Namco To Merge

Entertainment company Bandai announced today that they've purchased game creator Namco and as of September of this year will be merging into a single company. From the article: "Bandai shares fell 2.5 percent to 2,335 yen as of 2:27 p.m. in Tokyo, after dropping as much as 3.8 percent. Namco shares rose 8.8 percent to 1,530 yen, headed for their biggest gain since November 2003. The companies' shares were suspended for the first one and a half hours of trading, following an earlier report of the merger plan by the Nihon Keizai newspaper."

Comments

Re:tekken

[Anonymous Coward]

"So long as they dont butcher tekken, I guess its ok."

• Glad we've got your approval. I'll inform management that they can proceed with the merger.

Hmm

[Daetrin]

Was Bandai the one that there were rumors of Nintendo trying to buy out awhile ago? This would make them a much more valuable acquisiton, but probably more difficult to actually acquire.

Re:Hmm

[Lynxara]

Are you aware of how big Bandai is? Nintendo trying to buy them out would be like Apple trying to buy Disney.

Bandai has huge entertainment assets for animation, live-action, toys, apparel, all kinds of things, as well as a gigantic international distribution chain. Now all that marketing muscle is going to be behind Namco's original video game properties as well as Bandai's licenses.

Just imagine...

[Retroneous]

Ridge Racer cars shaped like Hello Kitty. Tekken consisting solely of characters from Digimon and a world where your main targets in Ace Combat are shaped like the star of freakin' Cowboy BeBop.

The future is...wait a bit...not yet...now!

Re:tekken

[superpulpsicle]

What do you mean? It's already butchered. The best one is still Tekken Tag Tournament. Didn't you know every sequel add 1 character and subtract 2. Only way Namco gets my approval is a Tekken Soul Calibre merge with 100 characters.

Nintendo Games... finally?

[Elranzer]

With Bandai being *in* with Nintendo, maybe they will finally force Namco to release some of their games multi-console. Soul Calibur 3 being a PS2-exclusive is very disappointing, as that slow system is not built for fighting games. Maybe Nintendo will finally buy Bandai (and Namco along with it) and Soul Calibur 4 will be Revolution-exclusive. Mwa-ha!

What this means to us.

[AzraelKans]

Either we FINALLY get some good Dragon Ball Z/anime games (or at least not as crappy) or all Namco games get merged with anime characters and are launched at subpar quality.

Either way prepare to read this line in the future:

Heihachi Vs San Goku!

Fight for Life is so much better

[bile]

Tekken? That's that shitty fighting game for the PSX/2 right? Everyone knows the best 3D fighter is Fight for Live on the Atari Jaguar. And Shadow for the 3DO is the best fighter period. If they made Tekken 6 more like DOA... i would so play it... or brought back Gon.

Merge?

[ultramk]

Merge my ass, Namco just rolled them up.

m-

Dream on.

[AzraelKans]

Sorry, but If Namco and Bandai have merged that means they dont need anyone else, Namco and Bandai (together) sum up to a lot of money and some very good and strong franchises. (Besides if N wanted to merge with Bandai they certainly wouldnt have taken Namco, someone said NO at that final contract Im not sure which though) I do agree their titles should be multi platform and theres a strong rumor soulcalibur 3 and tekken 5 will be available for xbox and gc soon.

Finally, what we've always wanted.

[oboylet]

I'll be able to play Tekken and Ridge Racer on my Bandai Pippin @World!

you know what this means

[UltimaL337Star]

marvel vs capcom x namco in angelgrove