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Namco Founder, Masaya Nakamura, Dies Age 91

ByRuaraidh Dempster 30 January 201730 January 2017

Video games are a relatively young industry, meaning deaths are – thankfully – uncommon. Unfortunately, one of the oldest men in the industry has died. Masaya Nakamura, founder of Namco in 1955, went on to publish famous titles such as Pac-Man.

Originally known as Nakamura Manufacturing, the company focused on creating rides in children’s toy-stores. The company was later renamed to Nakamura Amusement Machine Manufacturing Company – and finally, shortened to Namco. After buying part of Atari in the 1970’s the company blasted into success and helped push games into the public conscious – publishing such titles as Galaga and Dig Dug.

Moving into the 1980’s, the company continued its relative success through the video games crash with such titles as Soul Caliber and Tekken. Later, in 2005, the company evolved into how we know it today after merging with Bandai to form Bandai Namco.

Today, the publisher is known for such titles as Dark Souls, Tales of, Ni No Kuni and Ace Combat.

Ruaraidh Dempster

Ruaraidh - pronounced Roo-Ree - is a Scottish gamer with the name and games to prove it. He enjoys mostly everything, unless it involves exercise, and much prefers to run around inside a good, open-world RPG, being chased across the lands by a horde of monsters after his sweet loot. When he has made his escape, he will often return to the real world to continue playing anything with a good story - indie or otherwise.