Kyowa International Company
| |
| Kyowa International Company | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1977 |
| Headquarters | Tokyo, Japan |
| Key people | Yasushi Suzuki, founder |
| Industry | Arcade equipment |
| Products | Arcade equipment |
| Number of people | Not disclosed |
| Website | N/A |
Kyowa International Company, also known by its acronym KIC, is a Japanese arcade equipment distributor and manufacturer.
Arcade distribution and operation
Yasushi Suzuki began distributing Atari Breakout in 1977 under his given name, but he had already registered Kyowa International Company at the time.
After Taito Space Invaders was released in 1978, he began running game centers as opposed to distributing arcade games to other companies.
Bars, game cafes, and game centers
Suzuki owned two game cafes in Tokyo. These locations contained cocktail arcade games instead of tables. The main cafe, Suzuki Coffee Shop, was located in the Kanda neighborhood of the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo. The secondary cafe, Francais, was located in the Akihabara neighborhood of the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo, also known as Akihabara Electric Town.
He also owned several bars. At Lisbon, a bar in the Kotobashi district in the Honjo district of the Sumida ward of Tokyo, sumo wrestlers were regular customers. In an interview with Kosuke Ōhori, the director of the Institute of Game Culture Conservation and founder of Matrix Software, Suzuki recalled that he would allow the sumo Asashio Tarō IV to play the 1979 Namco arcade game Galaxian free of charge due to his status as well as the fact that he was not skilled at the game and would be done with the game quickly.
At its peak during the Space Invaders boom, Suzuki operated approximately twenty game cafes that contained between thirty and fifty arcade games in the neighborhoods near Ōhori Park in the Chūō-ku ward of Fukuoka, Japan. These machines generated approximately one million yen each month.
After a revision to the Act on Control and Improvement of Amusement Business in February 1985, Japanese game centers could no longer operate twenty-four hours a day. However, this did not apply to coffee shop operations, so game cafes were not affected. He would purchase used arcade machines, with tabletop arcades especially popular in the resell market. While buying used arcade machines which suffered from CRT screen burn-in from game centers that operated full-time, Suzuki surmised they were operating at full capacity.
Arcade printed circuit board modification services
The Space Invaders boom ended abruptly, both because of lack of interest from customers as well as the moral panic caused by schools and parent teacher associations unsuccessfully attempting to ban the game over unsubstantiated claims that it inspired truancy among students. This caught game center operators unprepared. During this period, many game centers closed and offloaded their arcade cabinet stock at increasingly low prices. Owners of game centers that struggled sought means to stay open during the drought of customers. In an effort to entice players into their establishments, inexpensive new gameplay experiences became a lucrative market for people with experience to provide them.
It was because of this need that modifications of arcade printed circuit boards became popular. These included such modifications as changing the ROMs on arcade game boards to enable the play of other games. As Suzuki had knowledge of the inner workings of circuit boards, he performed modifications such as replacing Space Invaders with Galaxy Wars, which was developed by Universal and distributed by Taito in 1979.
He would sometimes also install replace entire circuit boards with newer games. During this time period, arcade manufacturers would sometimes release printed circuit boards of the latest video games prior to its release date. Suzuki installed Namco Galaxian boards for game centers prior to its wide release in Japan in 1979.
In addition, Suzuki installed boards for other game centers after he advertised his services in sports newspapers. In addition, Suzuki sold conversion kits with these changes and advertised them in magazines. He also did business with the Brunswick chain of bowling alleys, traveling to each location to upgrade the arcade machines in its game centers.
In 1980, in addition to the arcade board modification service, he began used circuit boards sourced from the locations where he installed arcade board upgrades. Due to these game centers ending up with a surplus of used circuit boards after the games were switched out, Suzuki was able to purchase used boards. He was also able to obtain and sell new circuit boards as well.
Due to this new source of income, which Suzuki continued for two or three years, he was able to keep his game cafes open while others closed around them. This had a positive effect for his businesses, as the lack of competitors led to his facilities earning more income than they had previously.
Control boxes
Kyowa International Company released the G・BOX to business hotels in 1985. This device allowed mahjong games to be played on television sets in hotel rooms.
Also in 1985, the Japan Amusement Machinery Manufacturers Association unveiled the JAMMA connection standard which aimed to set up a standard that let an arcade owner easily change a game into an arcade cabinet without having to manually rewire everything for each PCB.
Taking advantage of the JAMMA standard, KIC released the first consumer model of its Control Box in 1986. It was the first device of its type sold to the general public. Because of this, any device of its type became known as a control box in Japan.
The Control Box sold well in kit form, especially in kit form. KIC followed it up with the Control Box Model-045 DX in 1988, the KIC'S-91 in 1991, and the Pana Twin in 1993.