Namco Bandai Holdings

From the Super Mario Wiki

Namco Bandai Holdings
Founded	Namco: 1950 Bandai: 1953 Namco-Bandai: 2005
First Mario Game	Mario Superstar Baseball
Latest Mario Game	Mario Super Sluggers

Namco-Bandai Holdings is a company that sometimes works with Nintendo. Originally, Namco and Bandai were two separate companies; in 2005, they merged with each other.

The first Mario game that Namco had developed was Mario Superstar Baseball for the Gamecube. This was considered to be the first dedicated baseball installment for the Mario game series' spinoff family in the sports category. Namco (before its merger) later produced an arcade cross-over Mario Kart game, which came to be known as Mario Kart Arcade GP and its sequel Mario Kart Arcade GP 2. These games are the first time in the Mario Kart series to have characters from other series appearing.

Their most recent Mario game is Mario Super Sluggers, which was released in Japan on July 2008 and on August 25th, 2008 in the United States. There has been no announcement at this time in regards to if the game will come out in Europe or Australia.

Namco's original logo.

Bandai's original logo.

[edit] Trivia

• In Pac-Man VS., one of Namco's games, the announcer is Charles Martinet, the person who does Mario's and many other character's voices in the Mario Series.

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