Cave (company) – Wikipedia

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Japanese video game company

CAVE Interactive Co., Ltd.

Native name

株式会社ケイブ
Type Public
TYO: 3760
Industry Video games
Founded June 15, 1994
Headquarters ,

Key people

Kenichi Takano
(Representative Director,
President and CEO)

Tsuneki Ikeda
(CCO)
Shinobu Yagawa
(Programmer, Director, Designer)
Products Bullet hell shoot ’em ups
Total assets JP¥ 1,094,000,000 (FY 2020)[1]

Number of employees

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97 (2020)
Subsidiaries Beads Mania (merged with Cave on June 1, 2008)
Mini4WD Networks Co., Ltd. (44.8% stake)
Declease ltd. 2014 (9.2% stake)
Website cave.co.jp

CAVE Interactive Co., Ltd.[a] is a Japanese video game company founded in 1994 by former employees of Toaplan following its bankruptcy. They are known primarily for their “bullet hell” shoot ’em ups; from 1995 up to 2013, CAVE was one of the most prolific shoot ’em up developers in the Japanese market. Alongside this, CAVE has produced a variety of other types games for arcades, home consoles, PCs, and smartphones, also dating back to 1995.

“CAVE” is an acronym for “Computer Art Visual Entertainment”.

History[edit]

During a stockholder meeting in August 2011, the company changed the English company name to ‘CAVE Interactive Co., Ltd’.[2] However, the foreign www.caveinteractive.com domain name had already been established on May 15, 2011.[3]

Key staff members include Tsuneki Ikeda (director and COO[4]) and Makoto Asada (game development department head[5]) who left the company in 2013.[6]
On January 24, 2014, community manager “Masa-King” announced that the Cave-World Twitter and blog were shutting down on February 28, 2014,[7] terminating all existing English social media presence in the west.

Within the Guinness World Records, CAVE holds the record for the “most prolific developer of danmaku shooters”, having released 48 games in the genre since 1995 as of October 2010.[8]

Subsidiaries[edit]

  • Mini4WD Networks Co., Ltd. (ミニ四駆ネットワークス株式会社) is a joint venture of CAVE Co., Ltd. and Tamiya established in 2006-02-01.[9][10]
  • ORANGE AND PARTNERS Co., Ltd. (株式会社オレンジ・アンド・パートナーズ): A marketing division. On 2006-08-30, CAVE Co., Ltd. announced the establishment of the subsidiary, effective on 2006-09-05.[11]
  • CAVE Asset Management Co., Ltd. (株式会社ケイブアセットマネジメント): Stock management and investment division. On 2006-08-30, CAVE Co., Ltd. announced the establishment of the subsidiary, effective on 2006-09-20-30.[11]
  • Declease ltd., International Co., (日曜日の生): It/os management and development division. On 2014-18-09, Cave Co., Ltd. announced about subsidiarity of Declease ltd., International Co.,

Former subsidiaries[edit]

  • CAVE Online Entertainment Co., Ltd. (株式会社ケイブ・オンライン・エンターテイメント): On 2005-07-13, CAVE Co., Ltd. announced the establishment of the subsidiary specialized in online entertainment, with CAVE and Kenichi Takano owning 90% and 5% stakes, respectively. The company would be established on 2005-07-15.[12] The subsidiary was established with CAVE, Kenichi Takano owning 92.3%, and 5.1% stakes respectively, with Kenichi Takano as the subsidiary’s CEO and president.[13] On 2006-07-24, CAVE Co., Ltd. announced merging the subsidiary and the online business into the parent company, effective on 2006-09-01.[14]
  • Appci Corporation (アプシィ株式会社), a video game, music, and online content development company; formerly known as Tabot, Inc. (タボット株式会社) before June 1, 2018.
  • Beads Mania: Vendor of fashion accessories. On 2005-05-31, CAVE Co., Ltd. originally announced the establishment of beads accessory division beginning on 2005-06-01.[15] On 2005-07-01, CAVE Co., Ltd. announced the complete acquisition of Craze Company (クレイズカンパニー株式会社) previously done in 2005-06-30 and became a 100 subsidiary of CAVE, which owned the Beads Mania (ビーズマニア) online shop.[16] On 2005-07-06, Craze Company was renamed to Beads Mania (ビーズマニア株式会社).[17][18] On 2008-05-07, CAVE announced the integration of Beads Mania business, effective on 2008-06-01.[19] On 2010-5-19, CAVE announced the sales of Beads Mania shop and the associated mobile phone site to Tougenkyou Inc. tentatively on 2010-05-31, and the closure of CAVE’s shops within Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi in 2011-7.[20]

Marketing[edit]

  • Since 2006, CAVE has hosted CAVE Matsuri, a yearly festival in which several announcements regarding company affairs are made. Also, some titles are offered exclusively at this event such as Mushihimesama Cave Matsuri ver 1.5.[21] The most recent festival was held on April 16, 2018.
  • A character of the same name represents the company within the company-collaborative RPG Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2.

Games developed[edit]

Arcade games[edit]

CAVE’s arcade titles have used various arcade boards over the years. Earlier titles used a CAVE-designed board based on a Motorola 68000 CPU,[22] with later releases moving over to the PolyGame Master hardware,[23] and then, starting with Mushihimesama, onto boards based on the Hitachi SH-3 CPU.[24][25] CAVE dabbled in PC-based hardware for Deathsmiles II,[26] but switched back to SH-3 for later titles.

Console games[edit]

On March 28, 2013 Cave released a special bundle called Cave Shooting Collection which contained all Xbox 360 titles published by them to that date (Akai Katana, Deathsmiles, Deathsmiles IIX, DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu Black Label, DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu Ver 1.5, Espgaluda II, Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets, Mushihimesama, Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5, and a download voucher for Guwange on XBLA), a disc containing all DLC for the aforementioned titles, 7 “superplay” DVDs, and a 10-disc soundtrack selection with songs from all of the included games except Guwange.[27] This bundle was re-released as Cave Shooting Collection Complete on May 22, 2014 including DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou but not including the soundtrack collection.[28]

Notes

^a Not released outside Japan but release is region-free.^b Not released outside Japan but regular edition release is region-free.^c Not released outside Japan and Europe but release is region-free.

Mobile games[edit]

Game Year Platform Publisher(s)
Ninja Tower 2004 Mobile Nuvo Studios
Loveny’s Picture Book 2006 Mobile Cave
Switch 2008 Mobile Cave
Espgaluda II 2010 iOS Cave
DoDonPachi Resurrection 2010 iOS Cave
Mushihimesama Bug Panic 2010 iOS Cave
Deathsmiles 2011 iOS Cave
Espgaluda II HD 2011 iOS Cave
Bug Princess 2011 iOS Cave
DoDonPachi Blissful Death 2012 iOS Cave
DoDonPachi Resurrection HD 2012 iOS Cave
Bug Princess 2 2012 iOS Cave
Bug Princess 2 Black Label 2012 iOS Cave
Espgaluda II 2012 Android G-Gee
DoDonPachi Resurrection 2012 Android G-Gee
DoDonPachi Maximum 2012 iOS, Windows Phone Cave
Mushihimesama BUG PANIC 2013 Android G-Gee
Deathsmiles 2013 Android G-Gee
Hello Kitty Puzzle Chains 2014 iOS, Android Mobage
Don Paccin 2014 iOS, Android Mobage
PSYCHO-PASS Koushiki Appli 2015 iOS, Android Cave
Gothic wa Mahou Otome [ja] 2015 iOS, Android Cave
DoDonPachi Ichimen Bancho 2015 iOS, Android Cave
Cube Drop 2016 iOS, Android Cave
Lord of Dungeon 2017 iOS, Android Cave
Sangoku Justice 2018 iOS, Android Cave
World Witches United Front 2020 iOS, Android Cave

See also[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]



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