The current company logo, depicting a dog incubating several eggs.

HAL Laboratory, Inc. (also known as HAL Labs and previously HALKEN) is a Japanese video game company, formerly a subsidiary of Nintendo prior to 2017. Among the assembly who created HAL Laboratory is Satoru Iwata, the former president of Nintendo of Japan. Among their many creations are the Kirby series and Super Smash Bros. series.

HAL Laboratory are not to be confused with HAL Corporation, a company that split apart from HAL Laboratory after a financial crisis. The result was that HAL Laboratory became a branch of Nintendo and HAL Corporation eventually closed in 2002. HAL Corporation worked on various games such as HAL Wrestling and Eggerland for Windows computers.[1]

Logo [ edit ]

The corporate logo & symbol, Inutamago[2] (Japanese: 犬たまご "Dog Eggs") depicts a dog similar to a dachshund incubating several eggs. According to a 2003 Nintendo Power interview about Kirby Air Ride, producer Masayoshi Tanimura notes that the dog (referred to as the Dream Hatcher) is a fictional creation and that the team do not think of the dog as a dachshund. Tanimura explains that the logo represents deep thought into "incubating completely new ideas that eventually hatch into incredibly fun games".[3] Inutamago has become the symbol of HAL Laboratory since December, 1998.

Video Game Series Produced by HAL [ edit ]

Notable video game series produced by HAL include:

HAL was also involved in the creation and/or localization of EarthBound, Sim City 2000, various Pokémon spin-off titles, and others. They have also worked on hardware for Nintendo, including for their most recent console, the Nintendo Switch.

For the full list of HAL's works, see https://www.hallab.co.jp/eng/works/

Staff works for HAL (past and present) [ edit ]

Presidents [ edit ]

The following people are past and present Presidents of HAL Laboratory.[4]

Key Creators [ edit ]

Composers [ edit ]

Trivia [ edit ]

Official website

Official Twitter

Official YouTube channel (with footage of many video games developed by HAL in the past)