Tose (company)


Tose Co., Ltd. is a video game development company based in Kyoto, Japan. It is mostly known for developing Nintendo's Game & Watch Gallery series, various Dragon Ball games, as well as other Nintendo products. Tose has developed or co-developed over 1,000 games since the company's inception in 1979, but is virtually never credited in the games themselves. "We're always behind the scenes," said Masa Agarida, Vice President of Tose's U.S. division. "Our policy is not to have a vision. Instead, we follow our customers' visions. Most of the time we refuse to put our name on the games, not even staff names." As such, Tose has gained a reputation for being a "ghost developer".

History

In November 1979, Tose was established at Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto as independent entity from Toa Seiko Co., Ltd. In April 1984 they began to develop video games, a year later educational software. Tose's head office was moved Otokuni-gun, Kyoto Prefecture in May 1986. Event software development began in April 1987. In July 1988, new head office in Yamazaki, Kyoto was completed. Starting in May 1990, Tose began developing software for Game Boy and Super Famicom.
In August 1999, Tose was listed on the Osaka Securities Exchange 2nd Section and Kyoto Stock Exchange. In October of that year, the Kyoto Head office was opened at Shijo-Karasuma, which integrate the business of head office functions and the Karasuma CG Center. On 27 September 2000, Tose was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange 2nd Section. In August 2001, they were listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange 1st Section and Osaka Securities Exchange 1st Section.
On December 18, 2007 Tose announced the leakage of its business information onto the Internet, discovered a day before. The information included 10 pieces of information relating to customer names, development cases, development contents, development fees and reception time.
On September 1, 2011 Tose announced separating the amusement machine development business from the 2nd game development department into a separate amusement machine developer.

List of games developed by Tose

NOTE: Some of these titles are merely believed or assumed to be developed by Tose, due to information compiled by various amateur and professional journalists. Most have not been officially confirmed as Tose-developed products by any of the games' publishers, co-developers, or Tose themselves. Many of the games released by Bandai, Tomy Corporation, Jaleco, Taito, Namco, Tonkin House were developed by Tose.

Arcade

These are games published by Nintendo that were developed by Tose.

Family Computer/Nintendo Entertainment System

Tose has ported a few games, including Square and Enix games for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES.