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."

tekken

[morgothan]

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

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.

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.

Re:tekken

[morgothan]

??? tekken 5 added three new charecters, and brought back a bunch of others, in fact the only charecters I can think of that are not in tekken 5 are kuni, armor king, gon and dr b. And most of armors kings moves that are worth anything king has. As for gon and dr b. they are joke charecters, and kuni, well raven is kind of like her, but not really, and kuni sucked anyway.

Re:tekken

[Soul-Burn666]

I disagree.
The fact you can just pickup the controller and a random character and seem to play reasonably is actually a good thing, it means the game is forgiving for newbies. But button mashing can only get you this far.
An experienced player will block impact or parry your attacks, cancel your throws, play mind games through fake moves or high mobility and throw so much pressure on you that make a mistake after mistake and even give him enough time to finish you off with style using some unblockable.

What

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.

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:Just imagine...

[DamienNightbane]

Well, the Falken in Ace Combat 05 does look quite a bit like the Swordfish...

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!

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.

Re:Dream on.

[MaverickUW]

you're right, but you haven't read the articles or kept up on their history.

For every bandai share, owners will get 1.5 shares of the new company compared to 1 to 1 for the Namco shareholders. Nintendo happens to own a decent chunk of Bandai already, which means that it will own a decent chunk of the new company. So they don't need the money, but they've both already got major Nintendo partnerships

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!

Re:What this means to us.

[KDR_11k]

Namco has been licensing obscure cartoon shows for some time now, lately they've announced games featuring Gumby, Peanuts and Hello Kitty

Merge?

[ultramk]

Merge my ass, Namco just rolled them up. [namco.com]

m-

Re:Merge?

[American AC in Paris]

Like that's possible.

Ugh

[Pluvius]

Man, I hope Bandai mostly stays out of Namco's affairs. Considering Bandai's track record with video games, this could be really bad.

Rob

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Bandai's games tend to sell extremely well in Japan.

Do the research on Banpresto's (Bandai subsidiary) Super Robot Taisen series some time. These consistently upset huge names in gaming to take the number one sales spot on all platforms. And if you're a mecha anime and strategy game fan, they are pretty fun. Mindless "gaiden" kind of storylines, but still fun.

Anyway, I'd say Namco fans have nothing to worry about. If anything, Namco's game development efforts will most likely take priority, given thei

Just one question:

[TripMaster Monkey]

Will the new company name be Namdai or Banco?

("Namco Bandai Holdings Inc." is so weak...)

Please vote for your favorite below:

Re:Just one question:

[ConceptJunkie]

They wanted "Bamco", but Emeril threatened to sue.

Re:Just one question:

[oldwolf13]

One word.

Bandriva.

Re:Just one question:

[Elranzer]

Actually this is what the company will be called after all of the mergings are finalized:

Nintendo

Finally, what we've always wanted.

[oboylet]

I'll be able to play Tekken and Ridge Racer on my Bandai Pippin @World! [computercloset.org]

Oh hell no...

[MatW]

I'm starting to see Ultraman versus Jin Kazama special round battle coming up.

Oh Great...

[servognome]

Now we're gonna see Mighty Morphin Pac-Man Ranger toys, TV shows, and video games

you know what this means

[UltimaL337Star]

marvel vs capcom x namco in angelgrove