Whatever happened to Sunsoft?

[shinkodachi]

Their last press release was from 2010 and even that wasn't a real press release, but an April Fools' joke: http://www.sunsoftgames.com/debrief.html.

I miss throwing the controller at the wall in rage and cursing the console and punching furniture in a fit to process my anger when playing the excellent games they made back in the day with that legendary hard difficulty like Journey to Silius, Blaster Master, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, etc.. I really, really miss those days when I still was just a stubborn child.

Why are they still around and what are they doing? In the past decade all they've worked on are Virtual Console releases and a WiiWare title. I know that Sunsoft in Japan has been hard at work on random mobile and pachinko games (http://www.sun-denshi.co.jp/soft/), but have they announced anything about leaving consoles for good?

After the NES they didn't really make any memorable games or anything that I liked. Everyone best remembers them from the NES era. Blaster Master kicked ass and I wonder to this day still how in the world did my NES controller survive all that handling and throwing when I died yet again in the same area in Blaster Master. I never got past Area 5 as a child. I revisited the game last year on the 3DS Virtual Console and finally beat it. And now I'm not happy about that realizing Sunsoft doesn't make anything now.

Wow, just thinking back to a game like Journey to Silius. Really getting emotional here. Sad to see a company that just never moved on past its shadow. Whatever happened to Sunsoft?

 

[VinsCool]

Died slowly I guess...
Their games were fantastic though.

 

[RevPokemon]

In 1995 they went bankrupt and had to make changes
http://www.sun-denshi.co.jp/soft/

Notice on there jp website there are some listed recently projects and games


Also check out the sunsoft twitter account


https://mobile.twitter.com/sunsoftgames

 

[shinkodachi]

Thanks for the pointer RevPokemon about them going bankrupt, I didn't know that.

Found this (emphasis added by me):

in February 1995, the entire staff was called in for a meeting where Sunsoft’s president announced that the company was shutting down effective immediately. They kept on a skeleton crew of four or five people to wrap up operations and facilitate transfer of IP over to Acclaim, but that was it for production, QA, and marketing. By this time, Looney Tunes B-Ball was in QA at Nintendo and we had just gotten Speedy Gonzales to beta, so it was about to go as well.

It turned out that Sun Corporation had lost millions on some golf course investment in Palm Springs and it cost us all our jobs.

From the interview at Dromble: http://www.dromble.com/2012/10/11/i...es-sunsoft-licensed-games-and-the-16-bit-era/.

Wow, that sucks. Reminds me of when I read that MileStone Inc. was closed in 2013 after its president was arrested for illegal investments in an energy company. So a golf course was the beginning of the end at Sun Corp. Ouch. A waste of excellent talent. I do wonder where Sunsoft developers are now? Anyone know?

 

[RevPokemon]

Thanks for the pointer RevPokemon about them going bankrupt, I didn't know that.

Found this (emphasis added by me):

From the interview at Dromble: http://www.dromble.com/2012/10/11/i...es-sunsoft-licensed-games-and-the-16-bit-era/.

Wow, that sucks. Reminds me of when I read that MileStone Inc. was closed in 2013 after its president was arrested for illegal investments in an energy company. So a golf course was the beginning of the end at Sun Corp. Ouch. A waste of excellent talent. I do wonder where Sunsoft developers are now? Anyone know?

They still make games although only in Japan. I'm assuming most of the orginal devs either a) retired (many of them are in thier 60's probably) or b) left for other companies like konami or capcom or c) work on the current Japan only games.
Note they were working on shenmue city for the PC before it got canceled

 

[Zetta_x]

Oh god... Blaster Master...

I must have played that game at least 100 separate times as a child. That fucking water level / crab boss....

I finally got to the last world (the one with the crazy shit music, purple) and died trying to find the last boss dungeon. I practically gave up. After replaying it, I finally beat it.