Bandai Co., Ltd.

Overview

General

Bandai considers character merchandising as their core business model. The developed characters are promoted through several entertainment ventures such as toys, card products, plastic models, game software, animated TV-series and confectionery. Main product lines are Mobile Suit Gundam, Digimon, Power Rangers and Tamagotchi.

History

Bandai Co., Ltd. was established in July 1950 and sold celluloid, metallic toys and rubber swimming rings. Astroboy is their first toy that is based on a TV-character.

In 1980 they launched the Gundam plastic model toy series which became a huge success and surpasses 100 million units in cumulative sales in 1984 and 300 million in 1999.

In 1978 Bandai Publishing was established and their first electronic game success was LSI Baseball. The Mobile Suit Gundam computer game series became another huge success topping 20 million sales in 2004.

In 2005 Bandai spun off their computer games division and established Bandai Games Inc..

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