Hudson Entertainment Closes its Doors Cancels its Projects
Hudson Entertainment Closes its Doors, Cancels its Projects Nintendo Life <h1></h1> US office shuts up shop by Share: Hudson Entertainment, the North American localisation arm of Japanese firm Hudson Soft, is to close its doors for the last time. A blog post by product manager Morgan Haro has revealed the Western distributor of Hudson games has been disbanded, with all Hudson's previously planned projects hitting the skids as well, meaning we'll likely never see hit WiiWare. Konami recently announced plans to take over Hudson, a fact that has likely contributed to the closing of Hudson Entertainment's US office. Japanese firm Hudson Soft will still continue to produce games for mobile devices, but it seems the days of innovative home console titles may be approaching the end. is an honest and insightful look at what happens when companies close down, and is well worth a read. [source ] Share: Comments ) That makes me so sad. I'll miss you Hudson. Long live the PC Engine! It's a sad day. This is hugely sad news, I imagine that this will have a considerable detrimental impact upon Hudson titles being released in the west, if there is no longer a US localisation arm. Hudson are a legendary company in my eyes, particularly because of its involvement with the PC Engine/ TurboGrafx-16. I sincerely hope that future western releases of its retro classics, and its updates of its classic franchises, are not hit too hard by this. More importantly, tons of luck to everyone who works for Hudson Entertainment in North America and best wishes to its team for the future. Damn that's a shame. /me hugs all of his Hudson games. Oh no, what will happen to bomberman!? The Star Soldier series i knew ye well. Long Live StarSoldier, Bomberman and Bonk. LONG LIVE HUDSON! : He belongs to Konami now. Aw man, this is just a sad day. I'll miss that bumblebee logo! Great company and a great shame. Glad they managed to release Dracula X on VC. This may mean that Sapphire will never come out on another format. I have the iphone emulator of PC engine and its excellent. Real shame to see a classic company like Hudson being downsized. Here's hoping they rebound sometime in the future... :0 I've loved Hudson since I was a kid, and now that the US localisation is shutting down, I...This is truly a sad day. What!? Nooooooo! :/ This is a sad day indeed, at least Hudson isn't disappearing completely though. Dang! Dang! These guys generally did great work didn't they? Sad news and bad news. Especially for the talented ppl who have lost jobs. Damn, what a shame... That's why you're still a kid! Wow! That is the end of an era for me. True, I haven't bought a WiiWare game in ages.But, for the first couple of years of it's existence I was buying lots and Hudson were making a lot of my favourites. If their hits weren't making them enough money I shudder to think how other companys relying on WiiWare sales are doing. This news is just another nail in the coffin of WiiWare. Why does Konami have to keep on giving me more and more reasons to hate it for like 10 years now already? Farewell Hudson, you will be missed ...and here I thought Hudson could live on such an extremely well known and loved franchise alone. Of course I mean Bomberman. It seems one big franchise is not enough. What is KONAMI's biggest? Metal Gear, Yu-Gi-Oh, Castlevania and PES I believe. Big difference. Brink of Extinction, indeed.<br />I think I'll join y'all in popping a HuCard into my TurboGrafx-16, hitting the "run" button, and playing some Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. Long Live the bee. It is sad Bomberman, Bonk, Mario Party all gone RE: Everyone talking about Mario Party Incorrect. The lead devs who were responsible for Mario Party from the very beginning left Hudson to join the Nintendo-owned development group Nd Cube, which was responsible for creating Wii Party. (source: ) Ive got to be honest though. The recent games theyve put out have been well below par. Deca sports<br />Recent Bomberman efforts The last great Hudson game I can remember is Saturn Bomberman The way that games are now I can see why its happened. Just like with Data East and Irem when they went. In all Honesty ever since I started gaming there hasn't been a huge amount of Hudson games I liked. I was never that big a fan of Bomberman and the Adventure Island series was alright but It was only slightly interesting to me. Such a shame about that new Bonk game.<br />All that promoting the game and getting everyone all excited for nothing. What no Mario Party 9!? Hmm... thats a shame. I'll remember Hudson every time I play Bomberman or Bloody Roar. I wonder what will happen to them. The other games though, I really dont care for. Anyway, Hudson, I salute you. Nooo! Now I'm never going to get online Mario Party, or Bomberman 64 into VC. This is a sad day indeed. After reading all this, why am I getting the feeling Capcom's gonna sink too? If they were the creators of bormer mam. Then what will hapen to the 3ds version? I knew that their were two games that Hudson was making for the 3DS (Bomberman was one of them). So, those games are being canned too? NNOOOOOOOOO! wow... these guys have been around forever... this is... big... Hey! What about games with online play? I would like to know if we can still play those games online. D: Noooooooooooo not Bomberman!!!!!!! Capcom if you die too I shall shatter into a million pieces. ;_; I'm sure we'll still see bomberman games. That's a pretty well known franchise, and is likely mainly developed in Japan anyways. Konami has it's own localization people, so it's not like games can't be brought here. It's the smaller niche titles that will be cancelled/not localized. This is indeed sad news, but I think some are misinterpreting it. Hudson Sofr (Japanese developer) is still running, bought by Konami with a new focus on social and handheld games (including, presumably, existing and future 3DS games). Hudson Entertainment (U.S. Publisher) is closed. Konami will probably publish Hudson's 3DS games in the US. How depressing... Hudson was always known for making unique games... Crap, now we're just stuck with Bungie D: lol jk, of course. Hudson was one of my favorite companies and now they are leaving <br />They had some of my favorite games such as Water Warfare. Farewell Hudson. sigh Crap, so Bonk and Battlefest are kaplooey? What about all those 3DS games by Hudson? Ugh, this is givign me a headache. Here's to Hudson...one helluva ride, guys!!! I honestly hope that we still get to see Hudson Soft games. They were my favorite developers in the early days of WiiWare. Crap, and I was really looking forward to the new Bonk. It's a shame such an awesome video game company is being downsized. Farewell Hudson, legendary developer of tons of SHUMPS, Bomberman, and many other classics. I am a big Hudson fanboy. Loved what they have done with the Wii. Fantastic games. I have most of their stuff on PC Engine/VC and WiiWare. Your shooting games rule, Bomberman and Alien Crush Returns and the rest. I love you Hudson. Sad. @X: Konami should be publishing those All the bees are dying. We're all doomed. Hudson was one of the best Wiiware developers and also one of the best 3rd party Wii developers with games like Lost In Shadow and the Kororinpa series. I also appreciate them bringing out a huge collection of mostly unknown (and mostly awesome) TurboGrafx games to the Virtual Console. Sad to see them go. Goodbye Hudson, we will never forget you or your awesome games. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I hope Konomi releases Bonk: Brink of Extinction. Out with the old,in with the New. Hudson has seen better days That sucks the bonk wiiware is cancelled It's too bad, but not that surprising, as they've been limping along for years now. I'm pretty sure Bomberman was their only bankable franchise left. It's always sad to see a gaming company go down. I didn't buy many of their games (like 2-3 that I can think of) but they were pretty solid and so I salute their sinking ship. As for people asking about Mario Party, it's not like we've gotten one in a couple years anyway, lol. Hudson is one of the few third parties who's had some kind of consistency when it comes to above-average quality and innovation. Sure there was some junk, like the Deca Sports games, but there have been many great games – some of which flew under the radar – like Kororinpa, Wing Island, Honeycomb Beat, and then of course there are the Bonk, Star Soldier, Bomberman and Adventure Island franchises. I really liked their WiiWare stuff too, and was so looking forward to Brink of Extinction. : And maybe if they actually RELEASED their Bomberman games in America, it would've been. Seriously, Hudson hasn't bothered to publish the last several retail Bomberman games in America. Atlus picked up one or two (mostly the Land series...bleh), and Konami published Act Zero (unfortunately), but that's it. We missed more than one Bomberman title on DS I wanted to play, but never got around to importing from Europe. With terrible mismanaging like that, it's really no surprise to me that their American branch would fail. I suppose this means we won't be getting the recently announced (and already behind schedule) Turbografx games on PSN in America, either. Crap, I was looking forward to that. R.I.P Hudson chill guys not like mario party dies with Hudson there are other companys nintendo can use to continue the series I was waiting for Bomberman Battlefest to come to WiiWare.<br />Looks like that too might never come and we will only have the first WiiWare Bomberman.. Goodbye Hudson <br />(Hopefully Konimi is smart enough and will rebrand and continue current projects) Maybe Konami will continue Bomberman? I knew this day was coming, I just wished it never would. whatever i only have 1 game from them but i sold it This really sucks. They haven't made many games that I like but they've made a few great games that I like. I hope konami will still bring omega five to 3ds. I'm guessing no more Mario Party I hope Konami makes good use of Hudson's properties. Ironic how Konami did publish a Bomberman game on PSP and now Hudson is merging in with them. I really hope that the localizations of Hudson's titles do happen. I really want that Bomberman 3DS title.. : Nope. Look above in wariowoods' post. How is that ironic? I think it's more foreshadowing than anything else Ah, what the hell Hudson? Glad Nintendo got Mario Party 2 out before Hudson folded, but I guess that means that Mario Party 3 has no chance now. And another piece of my childhood vanishes. Vaya con Dios, Hudson. Thanks for the memories. @ Mike: Nintendo has the IP rights on the Mario Party games, so I think we'll still see them on VC. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! you sound like you don't like hudson because you didn't like the 1 game of thiers you actually bought 0_o<br />how many companies do you know that never make a bad game XD @16 I see what you did thar! Shame Hudson has shut up shop... and I bet all Bomberman's are gonna suck now. : You took the word right out of my mouth. I was looking forward to the new bonk, is this game going into "development hell"? A sad day indeed. T.T Konami, you make good with their current projects ya hear? @29: What!!! Don't even say that!! If Capcom ever sunk....I wouldn't know what to do! They are BY FAR by favorite 3rd party developer. This is very sad news indeed. Although their recent efforts have been sort of meh, they will still be missed. I certainly hope we will see another Mario Party somewhere in the future in spite of this event... D: But but but hudson....<br />WHY?<br />T.T what will happen to mario party? This sucks. Hudson was one of my favorite developers... Well, this stinks... Bomberman will never be the same! So sad to see a legendary developer, one that made so many games from my childhood and beyond, disappear (or become diminished to almost nothing). Hope Konami keeps it alive in spirit by continuing Bomberman, Adventure Island, and so forth. Konami has been one of my favorites for well over 20 years now. But I'm not their biggest fan lately. Their support for Nintendo consoles and VC lately has been almost non-existent. Rebooting and changing the Castlevania series I've known and loved into something I hardly recognize. Now making Hudson a shadow of it's former self. Makes the age-old question of "which is better, Konami or Capcom" easy for me to answer. At least at this point in time. As to comments fearing this fate for Capcom, I consider it one of those companies "too big to fail". That's not going to happen. If it did, I'd fear for the future of video games. Farewell, Hudson Bee. Sayonara, Hudson. Seriosly? eh, i kinda predicted it ...... still its so sad ;'( Hudson& Nintendo only made mp1-3 Mongeni took over then... but with their leader dead they dropped out too NO that means no Sonic Shuffle 2 You deserve a smack in the head for that xD... MARIO PARRTTYYYYY!!! I must see one more of those T.T The blog post got taken down, and I really wanted to read it. <br />If anyone has another link to what he said, please post it. A sad day for gaming. RIP Hudson, you shall be sorely missed i cant believe it . I was looking forward to all those games. time to lower the flag to half-mast and sing the national anthem. Gone, but will never be forgotten. Seems more like Konami will just take over development/publishing duties of the Hudson brand. Here is a link to a different site, as Morgan Haro's (Hudson Entertainment brand manager) blog post has reappeared at . Man this is some sad news. I'm definitely going to miss Hudson. <br />I hope Konami keeps Bomberman going in the west. I was looking forward to that new 3DS one. unbelievable Ouch. I honestly didn't care for many of Hudson's recent games, but I still wouldn't wish this on them. Wonder what Konami will do... Didn't they make the Mario Party games and... I think Paper Mario?<br />(Correct me if I'm wrong) Aw, thats a shame. Does this mean we wont be able to play any Hudson games on WiFi connection now? Paper Mario was made by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems<br />Why Hudson,Whhyy!?!?!?<br />Long live, Honey.<br />Goes cries in corner I had owned some Hudson games. Cross your fingers if you want Hudson to be rebrand in the future. Man... no more Adventure Island or Bomberman? Or does this mean Konami will keep the Hudson moniker (and franchises) and a different NA publisher will pick up the slack to bring the games over? I can't see Bomberman and such going away just like that... stay tuned I guess... Oh no! What will happen to Mario Party 3 now?! Oh wait...it's NINTENDO-published. Okay, never mind. I love the Bomberman series. I'll always remember blowing-up walls and increasing the number and power of explosives I can have in the arena at a time. That blog link committed suicide. Me, this was probably imminent, considering that Hudson was no longer a console company. (Then again, that logic dictates SEGA a candidate for disbandment.) I wonder if Konami/Hudson Nippon would take their abandoned projects... Dude, Hudson was more than jsut Mario Party. And you really think we care that much about Mario Party? Hudson made Bomberman, the TG-16, Bonk, and other classics, not just Mario Party. Effing bias that's what That sucks, another one down.... how many more Wii-ware games are going to be dropped or switched to Xbox live? Descent & Retro City Rampage better make it to Wii-Ware! Now is a good time to get a nice ole' PC Engine along with it's CD accessory & maybe an arcade card. Too bad we might not be seeing any more PC Engine games. umm, why is everyone saying "RIP" to Hudson. The company isn't dead. There's no mourning needed. They still have products coming out for Kinect and the 3DS, they're still making many games for the Japanese market (including a new momotaro game, one of their longest running series), and Deca Sports. If you're mourning Hudson in American ,that's one thing, but the company is still alive, the logo is still in use. There's even apparently Bonk and Bomberman games coming out for the 3DS (I'm on their Japanese site right now). 109. Xkhaoz 10 Feb 2011, 00:04 GMT Dude, Hudson was more than jsut Mario Party. And you really think we care that much about Mario Party? Hudson made Bomberman, the TG-16, Bonk, and other classics, not just Mario Party. Effing bias that's what You need to chill man i was just saying that to people who think mario party is gone no need to set things on fire here @NL staff why does all your news sound like a gaming apocalypse?<br />its just Hudson us which will be overtaken by Konami so all game may remain just with a konami branding and by the way Adventure island and Bonk are made in Japan and Hudson japan is still the same so nothing changes really Hudson Japan is now controlled by Konami, and it sounds like they're only going to focus on social media and portable gaming, hence probably less innovative home console titles. I think that some of these comments are misinterpreting the events as the end of Hudson altogether, but the above story sounds to me like a pretty straightforward statement of the facts with a bit of speculation of what we might see in the future. In any case, we've contacted Konami to see if they plan on releasing Hudson's WiiWare projects. The 3DS projects should still come out as well, and we've asked Konami if they plan to publish these in the U.S. : A lot of people don't really get the difference between a local publishing branch and an entire company. Of course, Hudson didn't help any by using confusing names. Most companies include the nation in question in the name of their local branch, instead of Hudson Soft's American branch being Hudson Entertainment. See how confusing that is? There's certainly the possibility of any number of projects that have just been canceled being revived by Konami, but they'd probably more or less start over if they did instead of referencing the plans made by Hudson Entertainment, which would probably delay release by quite a while. I read through the blog post (didn't have time this morning), and I must agree that lack of co-operative communication has to be what did them in. Hudson was making some pretty good games, but for some moronic reason, wasn't publishing them in America! So we miss out on the latest GOOD DS Bomberman game (such as the poorly-titled-in-PAL-regions "Bomberman 2") in favor of yet another Deca Sports? With business practices like that, they DESERVED to go under. As I said this morning, I'd be most concerned about what this means for retro releases. Well, Konami seems to sort of like retro, but is negligent of its OWN IP's without trying to keep track of Hudson's. I still want to see Neutopia 3, but I'll be even more surprised if that turns up as anything but a fan game (and there's actually one of those in progress) at this point. Now I don't know if I can expect Turbografx on PSN AT ALL, which kinda bums me out because it was looking much better featured than the VC releases (save state anytime and works on both PSP and PS3). And all that's considering I only care about two of the releases they'd announced (Bomberman '94 and Neutopia). Now, Konami has under their belt the Super Special Mario Bros. game. If anything, this seems like when Square Enix bought Taito. And that was a very good thing for the Taito brand as it's games weren't quick cashouts but have actually turned out more polished then before(see Space Invaders Revolution vs Space Invaders Extreme.) @71. SolarJetman<br />I hope so, I loved Mario Party 3. It's sad but I'd be lying if I found it even remotely shocking....they just don't resonate with the current generation of gamers at all, and none of their attempts at new IPs/ideas have brought them much money or notariety. I've still always had this feeling that Faxanadu was magically gonna resurrect though...time to finally shelve that desire If this stops Mario Party 1 and 3 coming to VC then I'm going to be very sad At least they got Mario Party 2 out. As for a new Mario Party we haven't seen a new one for years so I assumed Hudson gave up on them. Hopefully Konami can revive it and make it better than the previous ones. As for Hudson's other projects, for everyone else's sake, I hope they still come out. My first thoughts about this news was that if there is not a US arm of Hudson to represent their software in the west, then that would have a negative impact upon their titles arriving in western territories. In my head I think that if a US office closes then some titles may never be distributed to us at all, but to be honest I do not know the inner working relationships between a Japanese developer and their international based offices. We are just speculating at the moment. I often view Hudson's catalogue from a retro perspective, much of my love of Hudson is based upon nostalgia and I am most enthusiastic about their classic games being re-released or updated, although I know that many people are concerned that western gamers could miss out on their new IPs. I think that it is difficult for the average gamer to predict the impact of this news, we just don't know either the plans of Hudson Soft in Japan, or of Konami regarding future releases of their catalogue. I follow on Twitter and I know that they were promoting the plans for TurboGrafx-16 games to head to PSN and iOS, but I imagine that projects like this are up in the air for the time being. It is definitely worrying that we may never see Bonk: Brink of Extinction on WiiWare, but I guess we will all just have to keep our fingers crossed. The ball is in Hudson Soft Japan and Konami's court now, we will just have to wait and see. What?? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! <br />Will this means The End of Mario Party?? I'm waiting for Hideo Kojima to oversee the brand new cinematic epic story that is a guy in a white suit blowing up crap for no apparent reason. Ummm isn't it Hudson of Japan that makes pretty much all the games? Hudson is not dead just their American counterpart. We may not see their games anymore but they will still exist for those that care to look. Didnt Hudson make Mario Party DS? I remember the bee in the soccer dodge minigame. Sad. I was looking forward to Bonk: Brink of Extinction. This is sad news indeed, hopefully those effected by this will find jobs again quickly. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I wanted Mario Party 3 on the Wii's Virtual Console!!! What a drama!!!! A quick online search showed that Konami has actually been buying pieces of Hudson for almost ten years. In point of fact, Konami finished buying Hudson in entirety last month, so it's not very surprising at all that they'd shut down a redundant office like Hudson Entertainment. It IS a shame that they apparently didn't feel the need to keep on any of the employees, however. But I don't think this will actually likely have TOO large an impact on game releases...armed with this new knowledge, it seems more likely to me that Konami will simply pick up some of the titles to put out itself. They'd have no reason to tell the Hudson Entertainment people they're laying off those details at this time, of course. We'll just have to wait and see if I'm right. What worries me is that A. Konami made Bomberman Act Zero, which was an aweful reboot. Though I'm not saying that they will do it again, you have to understand that my trust in them is fairly shaky. On top of that, while I still don't know if they are going to continue with Bomberman, my favorite game series, I do know that they are not continuing Bomberman's 3DS game. The script for Bomberman 3DS is for sale to anybody, it was published by BETAscript. I saw it on a site that I usually buy my books and games from. 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