Hudson Soft (Ohga Shrugs)

Hudson Soft is a Japanese video game developer. It is a subsidiary of Nintendo.

History
Founded on May 18, 1973 as a dealer in personal computer products, the Hudson Soft began making games in March 1978. For the first five or so years of game development, the company developed dozens of titles, none of which were particularly successful. However, starting with 1983's Bomberman, which became a key franchise for the company, Hudson Soft began to establish a strong reputation. Hudson Soft's relationship with Nintendo began shortly afterwards, as they became one of the earliest third party developers for the Famicom. Notable games for the system included Lode Runner, Bomberman, and Adventure Island.

In 1987, Hudson Soft collaborated with NEC to create the "PC Engine" console, known as the "TurboGrafx-16" in the West. Although the system actually did fairly well in Japan, coming second only to the Famicom, it had troubles competing with the SNES and Genesis in the West, due to a combination of poor third party support and technical limitations compared to other 4th generation systems. Still, Hudson Soft created games for the system through 1993, in addition to games for competing platforms.

Throughout the fifth console generation, Hudson Soft suffered, as the costs of development went up and interest in their various franchises went down. Along the way, they began making the Mario Party series for Nintendo. In December 2000, Hudson Soft entered the stock market, where many of its shares were eventually purchased by Nintendo.

As the sixth generation went on, Hudson Soft continued to decline. Finally, in 2005, the company made a deal with Nintendo, in which Nintendo would fund Hudson Soft in exchange for exclusivity. Most future Hudson Soft games would be published by Nintendo.

Nintendo's de facto acquisition of Hudson Soft ended up being a turning point in the company's fortunes. Their party games for the Revolution sold fairly well, helped by Nintendo's massive advertising and brand power. Many smaller games were also made for the Nitro and eShop. However, the total number of games developed at a time was reduced, in order to maintain high quality.

List of Recent Games
The following games have been released by Hudson Soft since their 2005 deal with Nintendo.

GameCube

 * Mario Party 7 (2005)

Nitro

 * Bomberman (2006)
 * Mario Party Nitro (2007)

Revolution

 * Mario Party 8 (2007)
 * Revolution Party (2010)
 * Lost in Shadow (2010)
 * Mario Party 9 (2012)

Revolution eShop

 * Bomberman Blast (2007)
 * Tetris Party (2008)
 * My Aquarium (2008)
 * Adventure Island: The Beginning (2009)
 * Bonk: Brink of Extinction (2011)