Konami Cements Hudson
Bomberman and Bonk have a brand new daddy.
by Jeremy Dunham
April 11, 2005 - Japanese gaming giant Konami Corporation officially announced this morning that it has made Hudson Soft a full auxiliary division of its company. This no doubt comes as great news for the executives of Hudson Soft, who expect to post a record loss of revenue for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005.
Anticipating this loss, Hudson requested the assistance of its long-standing shareholder Konami, which has been an investor since August 2001 and possesses a whopping 45% ownership of all Hudson shares. Because of Konami's decision to accept a third-party allotment of 3 Million additional shares, however, it now owns 54% of Hudson Soft outright -- giving it majority shareholder status and the right to claim it as an official subsidiary.
The deal is expected to finish on April 27 when Konami pays out the funds necessary for the third-party allotment of shares. The total cost is expected to run the bargain price of roughly 1.434 Billion Yen, which translates to about $13.3 million U.S. dollars.
What kind of impact will this acquisition make for gamers? Only time (and Konami) will tell. But at the very least, Konami execs hope that the newly-established subsidiary status will raise Hudson Soft's total net worth and make its current reorganization process somewhat easier. Currently, Hudson makes use of more than 530 employees worldwide.
We'll be back with more on as it becomes available.
So who will Nintendo contract to make the next Mario Party game? That'll be an interesting splash screen for sure. "Presented by Nintendo... a Konami game... developed by Hudson."
Or how about a pseudo vertical followup to Star Parodia starring Bomberman, a Flying MSX system, and the Vic Viper and bonus unlockable characters? That would be sweeet.
Thank god they finally got that over with. Hopefully the team that made Ninja Five-0 was still with Hudson when they absorbed them...we desperetly need a sequel to that and I have very little faith in Konami actually doing it inhouse without fucking it up.