Namco Limited (Japanese: 株式会社ナムコ) was a Japanese video game and amusement center company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. Namco is currently a part of Bandai Namco Holdings, under the name of Bandai Namco Entertainment since 2006.
On June 1, 1955, Namco was founded by Masaya Nakamura as Nakamura Seisakusho (株式会社中村製作所). The company was reorganized to Nakamura Manufacturing Company in 1959.
Namco[]
1972–present[]
1972–1977[]
Designer:
Toshio Kai (initial design); Masashi Yamashita (refinement)
Typography:
Unknown
Launched:
December 1972
The firm began to bill itself as Namco (an abbreviation of Nakamura Manufacturing Company), upon the release of its "Crazy Buggy" game in late 1972. Its logo was reportedly colored to match the label of Shiseido's Bravas cologne, at the behest of Nakamura. In 1974, the company acquired Atari Japan.
In 1977, Nakamura Manufacturing changed its corporate name to Namco. A variation of this logo with a T (Namcot) was used for the company's domestic home console business from 1984 to 1995 and on Namcot Collection on Nintendo Switch released in June 18, 2020.
On September 29, 2005, Namco was acquired by toy company Bandai to form Namco Bandai Holdings. On March 31, 2006, Namco and Bandai's video game operations were merged into Namco Bandai Games (now Bandai Namco Entertainment) while the amusement center operations moved to a new company under the Namco name. This logo is still used by Bandai Namco Amusement for their video arcades and other entertainment products, as well as on games until February 2014.
