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Not to be confused with SunSoft, Inc., the main software division of Sun Microsystems from 1991 to August 1998.
Sunsoft (サンソフト, サン電子株式会社 San Denshi Kabushiki Kaisha) is a Japanese video game development company founded on April 16, 1971 as a division of Sun Corporation, itself a division of Sun Electronics, or Sun Denshi (サン電子) in Japan (its U.S. subsidiary operated under the name Sunsoft of America, though games they published showed a logo that read only SUNSOFT). Sunsoft's history in video games began in arcades; they had several hits in the early 1980s such as Arabian. In the latter half of the 1980s Sunsoft began developing original games and technology for the home video game console market, with emphasis mostly on the NES. Sunsoft had gone international at that time, and it had the publishing might to secure major licenses of the day (such as Batman and The Addams Family). Outside Japan, the definite golden era for the company was the 8-bit NES, on which their games were widely considered state of the art in graphical and aural prowess. Sunsoft was slow to transition to 16-bit consoles, however, releasing several NES and Famicom titles that went unnoticed at launch, and have only been rediscovered by enthusiasts recently, such as: Ufouria (Hebereke), Gimmick!, and Journey to Silius (Raf World). The games Sunsoft produced in the 16-bit era were no longer as polished or cutting-edge, the licenses were less prominent, and no new hit games appeared. Finally, in 1995, they heavily restructured in the face of bankruptcy, eventually resurfacing with a scant number of video games for the PlayStation and Game Boy Color. Additionally, a number of Sega games, including Fantasy Zone, Fantasy Zone II and After Burner, have been ported for Nintendo consoles by Sunsoft. The last games released and published by this company in the USA were Eternal Eyes, Blaster Master: Blasting Again, Blaster Master: Enemy Below and Power Quest. Citing several factors, like yet-another "next generation" console transition, and high overhead production costs, Sunsoft closed its offices in America and Europe, and initiated a re-organization. To this day, Sunsoft has continued to operate in Japan, developing and publishing a steady trickle of RPGs, pachinko games and mahjong games. On September 14, 2006, Nintendo announced that the developer was a partner on the Wii's Virtual Console.[1] Although this relationship with Nintendo took a few years to bear fruit, on December 4, 2009, Sunsoft announced[2] that they were partnering with GaijinWorks to bring Blaster Master to Virtual Console that month for 500 Wii Points. Also as of December 10, the company has also acquired Telenet Japan's entire game library.[3] [edit] Products
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