was a Japanese software development company that was in business from 1980 to 2003 based in

Sapporo ( ain, サッ・ポロ・ペッ, Satporopet, lit=Dry, Great River) is a city in Japan. It is the largest city north of Tokyo and the largest city on Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of the country. It ranks as the fifth most populous cit ...

Hokkaido is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The lar ...

. They started as a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developer, releasing titles for various home computer platforms (including the

Family Computer The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit Third generation of video game consoles, third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redes ...

), but subsequently left the gaming business to focus solely on programming software and tools as they entered the 1990s.

History

The company was founded on May 2, 1980 under the name Computer Land Hokkaido, publishing video games for various home computers under the "7 Turkey" brand name. In 1984, they officially changed their name to dB-SOFT, taking their new name from the decibel (dB) unit. Some of the company's most commercially successful video games include '' Flappy'' (which has been released in over 20 versions) and '' Woody Poco''. dB-SOFT also published two pornographic games under the Macadamia Soft imprint: ''Macadam'' and ''177'' (the latter was banned from retail by the National Diet due to its controversial premise in which the player's objective is to pursue and

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

a fleeing woman). In addition to gaming software, dB-SOFT also produced programming tools such as ''dB-BASIC'' (a BASIC

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...

), ''P1.EXE'' (a word processor) and ''HOTALL'' (a web designing tool). On August 1, 2001, dB-SOFT ceased operation after being merged into NetFarm Communications (a company founded by Reiko Furuya, Sadayaki Furuya's wife). Their former office building was sold off in 2002.

Softography

Notes

References

External links

Official website

dB-SOFT
games available a
Project EGGdB-SOFT
at

Giant Bomb ''Giant Bomb'' is an American video game website and wiki that includes personality-driven gaming videos, commentary, news, and reviews, created by former ''GameSpot'' editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis. The website was voted by '' Time' ...

* Companies based in Sapporo Defunct video game companies of Japan Video game development companies Video game publishers Video game companies established in 1980 Video game companies disestablished in 2001 Japanese companies established in 1980 Japanese companies disestablished in 2001 {{Japan-videogame-company-stub