Bandai

Bandai Co., Ltd. (株式会社バンダイ) is a Japanese toy company that marketed and distributed the Playdia system.

History
The company was founded in Tokyo, Japan as Bandai-ya in 1950 and adopted its present shortened name in 1961.

Bandai's earlier foray into the video game industry included the RX-78 microcomputer, which was released in Japan in July 1983. The Playdia console was released in Japan on September 23, 1994. Bandai CEO Makoto Yamashina (山科誠) predicted to The Wall Street Journal in 1994 that the company's interactive sales would surpass that of toys by US$ 1 billion by the year 2000.

Less than 3 months later on December 13, 1994 in Tokyo, Japan, Apple Computer announced its partnership with Bandai to develop the new Pippin platform. Yamashina had selected Apple's Macintosh as the basis of the Pippin due to its ease of use. Bandai spent $93 million on marketing and development leading up to the launch of the Pippin Atmark in March 1996. By the time it withdrew the consoles from the market in March 1998, over 50,000 unsold units remained in inventory and Bandai's losses from the Pippin were estimated at $214 million dollars.

Bandai merged with Namco in September 2005 and presently operates as a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings.