Koei

History

Koei's origins trace back to July 25, 1978, when Yoichi Erikawa, then twenty-seven years old, founded a dye and industrial chemical wholesale business in Ashikaga City, Tochigi Prefecture — taking over his family's dyestuffs business, which had collapsed the previous year. The company was named Koei (光栄), meaning 'glory' or 'honor.' For the first two years, it was a modest operation rooted in an industry with no connection to computers or games. That would change on Erikawa's thirtieth birthday.

On October 26, 1980, Keiko Erikawa gave her husband a Sharp MZ-80C personal computer as a birthday gift. The gesture was transformative. Erikawa, who had no prior programming experience, became fascinated by the machine, spending hours experimenting with its capabilities. In December of that year, he established a software development department within Koei called 'Koei Microcomputer Systems,' and the company began selling personal computers and developing business software. What had been a dyestuffs wholesaler was quietly becoming something else.

In October 1981, Koei released its first game: Simulation War Game: Battle of Kawanakajima. The game simulated the famous 16th-century battles between warlords Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin. Despite being an early experiment from a company with no established reputation in gaming, the title generated revenue three times that of the entire dyestuffs business for the year. The signal was unmistakable: there was a market for games that asked players to think like historical commanders, not simply to react with quick reflexes.

The breakthrough came on March 30, 1983, when Koei released Nobunaga's Ambition (Nobunaga no Yabou). The game placed the player in the role of a Japanese feudal lord during the Sengoku period, tasked with unifying the country through military conquest, diplomacy, and economic management. It was not an action game. Victory required planning, patience, resource allocation, and a grasp of historical context. The game became a commercial phenomenon and established Koei's identity: a developer that treated history with care and strategy as an intellectual exercise. From that point forward, Koei specialized in software development.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sangokushi) followed in 1985, transporting the same design philosophy to ancient China. Drawing from the 14th-century Chinese novel and the historical Records of the Three Kingdoms, the game invited players to command warlords like Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan in a sprawling turn-based strategy simulation. Like Nobunaga's Ambition, it became the foundation of a franchise — one that would span more than a dozen sequels and make Chinese history accessible to players worldwide. By the late 1980s, Koei had carved out a niche that no other developer could claim: the historical grand strategy simulation, built on deep research and long-form play.

The 1990s brought diversification. While Koei continued to refine its flagship simulation series, it also began exploring other genres. Uncharted Waters (Daikōkai Jidai, 1990) introduced naval exploration and trade simulation during the Age of Discovery. P.T.O. (Pacific Theater of Operations, 1989) and its sequels offered strategic command of World War II naval campaigns. Meanwhile, the Nobunaga's Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms series continued to evolve across console generations, each iteration adding new layers of complexity and historical detail. The company remained small by industry standards, but its influence was disproportionate: it had taught a generation of players that games could be about decisions, not just dexterity.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Koei expanded aggressively into action-based franchises. Dynasty Warriors (Shin Sangokumusou), developed by the internal ω-Force team, launched in 1997 as a fighting game but was reinvented in 2000 as a 'Musou' hack-and-slash title — a genre-defining shift that spawned dozens of sequels and spin-offs. The series has sold over twenty-four million units, making it Koei's best-selling franchise. Simultaneously, the company entered new partnerships and acquisitions: in 2011, it acquired Gust Co. Ltd., the developer of the Atelier series, adding a long-running JRPG franchise to its portfolio.

On April 1, 2009, Koei merged with Tecmo — a major arcade and console developer known for Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive, and Monster Rancher — to form Tecmo Koei Holdings. The merger agreement gave Koei shareholders a three-quarter stake in the new entity, reflecting Koei's stronger financial position at the time. The combined company was renamed Koei Tecmo Holdings on July 1, 2014. Yoichi Erikawa and Keiko Erikawa remain deeply involved in the company's leadership: as of 2025, Yoichi serves as representative director and chairman, while Keiko holds the position of representative director and president of Koei Tecmo Corporate Finance. For fiscal year ending March 2025, Koei Tecmo reported record-breaking revenue and profit, confirming that the dyestuffs shop from Ashikaga had become a global entertainment enterprise. The company that began with a birthday gift and a fascination with the Sengoku period had built an empire of its own.