Hudson Soft

Hudson Soft, commonly referred to simply as Hudson, was a Japanese video game developer and publisher most well-known for the Bomberman series. They also co-developed the NEC Turbo-Grafx 16/PC Engine video game console in the late 1980s. Hudson's most notable work for Nintendo and Mario is the Mario Party series, of which they developed eight console games and two portable games (Mario Party Advance, and Mario Party DS). Most of the Mario Party staff at Hudson moved to the Nintendo-owned Nd Cube when Hudson's former president moved over there.

In January 2011, Konami revealed that it was to fully acquire Hudson, buying out the company and merging it into Konami on April 1; as a result, Mario Party 9 was developed by Nd Cube. On March 1, 2012, Hudson Soft officially ceased to exist, having been merged into Konami Digital Entertainment, though quite a few of Hudson's staff members migrated to Nd Cube.

Hudson's mascot was Hu-Bee, a reference to the Hudson Hornet, a sedan from the 1950's built by the unrelated Hudson Automobile Company. Hu-Bee appears in Super Mario Bros. Special as an item that can be collected to earn 8,000 points.