Konami Gets Hudson Soft As Subsidiary

Japanese publishing and development giant Konami has announced that it is making Japanese-headquartered Bomberman creator Hudson Soft a wholly owned subsidiary, following continued financial trouble for the smaller developer, which has recently completed PSP title Rengoku: Tower Of Purgatory. According to an official Japanese statement from both companies, Konami will buy 3 million new Hudson shares for 1.43 billion yen ($13.26 million) on April 27th, giving it over 50% of the shares in the company, and therefore allowing Hudson Soft to be officially included as an auxiliary division of Konami. Hudson Soft co-founder Hiroshi Kudo previously resigned back in November 2004, due to the expected loss of 7.3 billion yen ($69m) for the financial year ending March 31st, 2005, another sign of Hudson's problems that have led to this change of ownership. As well as its assimilation of Hudson Soft, which has 530 employees, and which it previously held a large stake in, Konami also owns significant portions of other Japanese game developers including Atlus and Takara.