Namco

Masaya Nakamura founded Nakamura Seisakusho in 1955 and put mechanical horses on department-store roofs around Tokyo. In 1974 the company bought Atari's Japanese subsidiary, and with it the right to sell Atari's arcade machines in Japan — a cheap way into an industry that was still being invented.

Its own games followed: Galaxian (1979) with multicoloured sprites, then a year later Toru Iwatani's Pac-Man, deliberately designed to appeal to someone other than teenage boys. Pole Position, Ridge Racer and Tekken came later, the last two early system-sellers for the PlayStation. In 2005 Namco merged with toymaker Bandai to form Bandai Namco, and the old name survives mostly as a brand.