HAL Laboratory

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HAL Laboratory, Inc.
Type	Private
Founded	February 21, 1980
Headquarters	Chiyoda, Tokyo
Key people	Satoru Iwata (former president), Masahiro Sakurai (former employee)
Industry	Video game industry
Products	Video games
Employees	195
Website	http://www.hallab.co.jp/

HAL Laboratory, Inc. (株式会社ハル研究所, Kabushikigaisha Haru Kenkyūjo) is a Japanese multi media company primarily focused on video game development. originally founded on February 21, 1980 as a group of friends who shared a desire to create video games, and started off making games for the MSX system and the Commodore 64. When Nintendo released the Famicom in 1983, HAL shifted focus and started making more games for Nintendo. Their working relationship was cemented with the release of Kirby's Dream Land for the Game Boy. Both HAL and Nintendo own equal share in the joint venture Warpstar, Inc., which was made to autonomously handle the Kirby franchise license, similar to The Pokémon Company. In many of its games during the early to mid-'90s, it used the name HALKEN (derived from their literal Japanese name "HAL KENkyūjo"), as well as HAL Laboratory. Some of its early titles were also released as HAL America, a North American subsidiary of the company.

Iwata was president of HAL Laboratory before he become president of Nintendo. His presidency was spurred on by Nintendo offering to save the company from bankruptcy after the financial failure of the 2000 "Director's Cut" remake of the 1991 adventure game Metal Slader Glory on the condition that he would step up. Masahiro Sakurai, who created the character Kirby and the Super Smash Bros. series, also worked at HAL, and now leads his own company, Sora Ltd. The company is a second-party developer for Nintendo and is best known for creating the Kirby series and the Super Smash Bros. series, and has also worked on the EarthBound and SimCity franchises, as well as several Pokémon spinoff titles.

In Super Smash Bros.

Under the direction of Masahiro Sakurai, Hal Laboratory was the primarily developer of the game. Kirby, along with SSB, Maxim Tomato, Star Rod and 2 Kirby music tracks debut in this game. Also, Ness from Earthbound, which Hal codeveloped with Ape Inc. debuts along with one music track. Additionally, Pikachu and Jigglypuff have alternated costumes based on their appearances in the Pokémon Staduim, which Hal developed.

In Super Smash Bros. Melee

Sakurai and Hal returned as primary developers.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Sakurai returns as developer, but Hal takes a minor role in development, acting as support for Sora Ltd., Game Arts, and Monolith Soft.

Trivia

• Often believed to be derived from the HAL 9000 computer in the novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey, an interview with Iwata reveals that its name is a pun of the IBM company: each letter puts them a step ahead of IBM (the letters H, A and L come before the letters I, B and M, respectively).

External links

• HAL Laboratory, Inc (Japanese)
• Iwata interview
• N-Sider page (HAL Laboratory company profile)
• [1] (Japanese)