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Tose - Gaming's Little Secret
1up has a piece up looking at the fine folks at Tose, the secret development ninjas behind a number of popular games. This group takes contracts from other developers, and purposefully keeps its name off of the final product. They're the developers of many high profile games, and very few gamers have ever heard of them. If they do sound familiar, it may be because we had a discussion about these folks back in May of last year. 1up's article covers some of the same ground as Gamasutra's, dealing with Tose's unique relationship with developers and their unusually secretive nature. They do, however, dig up the names of some of the shops Tose has worked with, including outfits like Nintendo, Capcom, Namco, Sony, Square Enix, Electronic Arts and THQ. They also point out a few games they know to be Tose's handiwork; the GBA ports of the Final Fantasy titles, Super Princess Peach, and Metal Gear Solid Ghost Babel all bear the company's mark. The veil is cracking, then, but for the most part this group stands as a unique company in the games industry: a development house with little interest in press attention.
Tose - Gaming's Little Secret
I thought toes were the bipedal hominid's little secret?
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I guess, being a Japanese company, you would pronounce it "toe-seh."
Not meaning to be too unbearably pedantic here, but it's pronounced "toe - say". Apparently the company was spun off from Toa Seiko in November of 1979, with its name most likely just a portmanteau of Toa Seiko --> To + Se. So it seems they've been around a goodly while. (For those able to read Japanese, a quick-and-dirty company history can be found here on the company's site.)
Cheers...
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Actually, I reckon these guys deserve a whole lot of kudos! By staying out of the spotlight they manage to focus on the important stuff - making the games that we love to play!
Unfortunately in today's world most companies still believe that if you are unknown you cannot succeed, something that Tose have proven as wrong. I wish that there were more companies (especially in the gaming sector) that would be more interested in producing amazing, immersing titles without hunting around after the fame and glory which usually lead to less-than-optimum games.
Being rich but not famous ;)
Not meaning to be too unbearably pedantic here, but it's pronounced "toe - say".
Perhaps my joke was a bit too pedestrian.
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This is waaaaayyyyy old news. Welcome to 2002 1up!
Eat sleep die
So would this be considered outsourcing to Japanese codeshops?
move along folks...