Meta:Chunsoft Co., Ltd.

Chunsoft
Information
Type
Industry	Planning • development • sales and operation of game content
Founded	April 9, 1984
Founder	Koichi Nakamura
Location	Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Key people	Koichi Nakamura (Representative Director and President) Yasuhiko Sameshima (Executive Vice President) Seiichiro Nagahata (Director) Shigeru Nakajima (Auditor) Junko Yaguchi (Auditor)
Revenue	¥480.9 million (2012)
Operating income
Net income
Total asset
# of employees	170 (January 2011)
Owner
Parent	Dwango
Subsidiary
Website	Archived Official website (Japan)
Status	Merged

Chunsoft Co., Ltd. (Japanese: 株式会社 チュンソフト) was a Japanese video game development studio specializing in role-playing video games, and visual novels. The company was founded in 1984, and merged with Spike in 2012 to become Spike Chunsoft.

They created games such as the first five Dragon Quest installments and the Mystery Dungeon franchise. They also developed titles such as The Portopia Serial Murder Case, the Sound Novel series, consisting of Otogirisō, Kamaitachi no Yoru, Machi, and 428: Shibuya Scramble and the Zero Escape series.

History

Chunsoft was founded by Koichi Nakamura, a video game designer and programmer who had worked with Enix, including the popular Dragon Quest franchise until Dragon Quest V. The "Chun" in the company name is from the first kanji Naka (中) of the company founder name; Naka is read as "Chun" in Japanese Mahjong. This name would also appear in the company's first work with Enix, titled Door Door in 1983. Otogirisō marked Chunsoft's debut brand. Following that, successive genre-trailblazing titles Torneko's Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon, Kamaitachi no Yoru, and Shiren the Wanderer series established the company's good reputation. Nakamura himself had to move away from programming in order to run the company.

For a time, the company's products were considered mediocre, but 3-Nen B-Gumi Kinpachi Sensei: Densetsu no Kyoudan ni Tate! was a hit that showed signs of recovery. During the development of Template:GameTitle, Kouji Maruta, one of the programmers for these two games, and who contributed previously on EarthBound and Template:GameTitle, stated the company went through a bad business performance, as employees from Chunsoft would leave the company progressively due to this issue. The game's success not only helped giving more popularity in the Mystery Dungeon franchise, it also helped Chunsoft from going through a failure. Later in 2005, it was bought by Dwango, and became a subsidiary of the company.

Before the project, Sega were helping Chunsoft in developing and releasing their games for the Dreamcast. From 2005 to 2010, Sega have made a collaboration with Chunsoft titled "SEGA×CHUN PROJECT". Their goal was to provide support and sales for development funds, such as the Nintendo DS remake of Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer or 428: Shibuya Scramble.

In 2012, Chunsoft merged with its sister company Spike and the new company would be called Spike Chunsoft.

Works in the Mystery Dungeon Franchise

Year	Game	Console	Ref.
1993	Template:GameTitle	SFC
1995	Template:GameTitle	SFC
1996	Template:GameTitle	GB
1999	Template:GameTitle	PS1
2000	Template:GameTitle	N64
2001	Template:GameTitle	GBC
2002	Template:GameTitle	PS2
2004	Template:GameTitle	GBA
	Template:GameTitle	PC
	Template:GameTitle	PS2
2005	Template:GameTitle	GBA, DS
2007	Template:GameTitle	DS
2008	Template:GameTitle	Wii
2009	Template:GameTitle	DS
	Template:GameTitle	Wii
2010	Template:GameTitle	DS
	Template:GameTitle	DS

See Also

• Article on Wikipedia.