Sora Ltd.
| Sora Ltd. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Type | Kabushiki gaisha | ||
| Founded | September 30, 2005 | ||
| Headquarters |  Tokyo, Japan
| ||
| Key people | Masahiro Sakurai, Michiko Sakurai | ||
| Industry | Video game industry | ||
| Products | Video games | ||
| Employees | 2 (Masahiro and Michiko Sakurai themselves) | ||
Sora Ltd. (有限会社ソラ, Sora Company Limited) is a Japanese video game developer founded by former HAL Laboratory employee Masahiro Sakurai. It was formed in the years following Sakurai's resignation from his position at HAL Laboratory. Although it is considered a video game developer, it is merely used by Sakurai to conduct business with other companies, and therefore outsources development on its games to other developers.[1] Its only employees are Sakurai and his wife, Michiko.
Sora Ltd.'s first game was Super Smash Bros. Brawl. However, most of the development was handled by Game Arts and Monolith Soft.
For a while, Sakurai ran Project Sora, a division of Sora Ltd. and Nintendo, which was started in January 2009. An important distinction between Sora Ltd. and Project Sora is that the former is not officially affiliated with Nintendo; Project Sora allowed Sakurai to use Nintendo's resources for game development. It only developed Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS before officially closing on June 30, 2012.[2]
Sora Ltd.'s next game, Super Smash Bros. 4, co-developed by Bandai Namco, was released for the Nintendo 3DS under the name Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS in Japan on September 13, 2014, and on October 3, 2014 in North America and Europe, as well as releasing on the Wii U under the name Super Smash Bros. for Wii U on December 6, 2014 in Japan, on November 21, 2014 in North America, and on November 28, 2014 in Europe.
The company's latest release, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which was co-developed with the same team at Bandai Namco, was released worldwide on December 7, 2018 for the Nintendo Switch.
Smash Development History
2008
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Co-developer (with Game Arts and Monolith Soft.)
2014
- Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
- Co-developer (with Bandai Namco.)
- Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
- Co-developer (with Bandai Namco.)
2018
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- Co-developer (with Bandai Namco.)
References
| Companies involved in the Super Smash Bros. series | |
|---|---|
| First- and second-party | Nintendo (Monolith Soft · Retro Studios) · HAL Laboratory · Game Freak · Creatures · Intelligent Systems · Rare Ltd. · Sora Ltd. |
| Third-party | Konami · Sega (Atlus) · PlatinumGames · Capcom · Bandai Namco · Square Enix · Microsoft (Rare Ltd. · Mojang Studios) · SNK · Disney |
| Other related | Game Arts · Hatena · Havok · Paon DP · Tri-Crescendo · List of companies with minor representation |
