Developer Hudson has been around since before many of us were even born. Founded in 1973 as a personal computer parts company, it expanded its reach to video games where it developed one of the greatest series ever: Bomberman. Hudson and its lineup of games will soon be under new leadership as Konami has entered into a deal to buyout the developer.
The change will take place April 1st as Hudson will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Konami. Konami has stated the reason for bringing in the smaller developer was for its performance with Social Networking and Mobile game development.
“Above all in the Internet media industry, advanced function portable terminals ‘smart phones’ are becoming increasingly popular, and contents business opportunities for smart phones are expected to increase,” Konami said as part of a filing. “Entering into new network services, including social network games, as considered with the booming [social network services] is expected to increase opportunities to recruit new users and the multifaceted development of our contents.”
Konami did state that this buyout should not affect neither Hudson or its own business operations; which means hopefully no layoffs. It will be interesting to see exactly what kind of effect this has on the games side.
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