Native name 株式会社ハル研究所 Number of locations 2 Type of business Kabushiki gaisha | Romanized name Haru Kenkyūjo Founder Hiroji Iwasaki Number of employees 153 (2016) | |
Key people Masayoshi Tanimura (Chairman & CEO)Satoshi Mitsuhara(President & COO) Founded 21 February 1980, Chiyoda, Japan Video games Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby: Planet Robobot, Super Smash Bros.Mel, Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Adventure Similar Hirokazu Ando, Jun Ishikawa, Shigesato Itoi, Shogo Sakai, Hirokazu Tanaka Profiles |
HAL Laboratory, Inc. (Japanese: 株式会社ハル研究所, Hepburn: Kabushiki Gaisha Haru Kenkyūjo) is a Japanese developer that was founded on February 21, 1980 that is closely affiliated with Nintendo. It is headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. The company got its name because "each letter put them one step ahead of IBM". The company is most famous for its character Kirby, the eponymous protagonist of the series of games; the Mother series (otherwise known as EarthBound); and the Super Smash Bros. series.
Contents
- Home console
- Handheld
- Commodore VIC 20
- Commodore MAX MachineCommodore 64
- Coleco Vision
- MSX
- MSX2
- Windows
- References
HAL Laboratory started off making games for the MSX system and the Commodore VIC-20.
In many of its games during the early to mid-1990s it used the name HALKEN, derived from their Japanese name. Some of its early titles were also released as HAL America, a North American subsidiary of the company led by Yash Terakura.Hal owns 50% of Warpstar, Inc., the production company that created the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! anime series.