Sora Ltd.
Sora Co. Ltd. is a Japanese video game company founded by Masahiro Sakurai and Michiko Sakurai. Sora is not a development company, and only acts as an agency for Sakurai and his wife Michiko to proceed with contracts with publishers, with Sakurai working mainly as director and Michiko as UI designer. Due to having only two members, Sora works with other development companies which act as the lead developer while Sakurai direct the employees of those companies. Super Smash Bros. series , and Meteos are some of the projects which they were involved.
History
After years working in the development company Hal Laboratory, Masahiro Sakurai and Michiko Sakurai decided to quit the company to work as freelancers with their own company. With this, Sora was built as an agency that would contract them as freelancers to different companies. His first project under Sora was Meteos with Q Entertainment. Nintendo's Satoru Iwata hired Sakurai, someone he had worked with at HAL Laboratory, to work on Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Development was supported by various other studios, including Game Arts and Monolith Soft.On 18 February 2009, Nintendo announced the formation of Project Sora, a subsidiary created to develop a new video game, which would be directed by Sakurai. The development group was located in Iidabashi, Tokyo. The company was officially formed on 22 January 2009, with capital of 200 million, of which 72% was provided by Nintendo and the remainder by Sora Ltd. and other parties. Sakurai served as the company's president. The studio began development of ' with a staff of 30 developers, with more staff being recruited during the development process. ' was released in March 2012 for the Nintendo 3DS. Project Sora ceased operations on June 30. The official Project Sora website announced: "The company was dissolved on June 30th, 2012. Thank you very much for your patronage so far. This website will be closed on July 31st."Bandai Namco Studios would collaborate with Sora Ltd. for the development of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Both games were published by Nintendo.
List of games developed
| Year released | Title | Publisher | Developed with | Platform |
| 2005 | Meteos | Bandai | Q Entertainment | Nintendo DS |
| 2008 | Super Smash Bros. Brawl | Nintendo | Game Arts | Wii |
| 2012 | Nintendo | Project Sora | Nintendo 3DS | |
| 2014 | Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U | Nintendo | Bandai Namco Studios | Nintendo 3DS Wii U |
| 2018 | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate | Nintendo | Bandai Namco Studios | Nintendo Switch |