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HAL Laboratory

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HAL Laboratory
The company's current logo, titled "Dream Hatcher", depicts a dog incubating a trio of eggs.
Details
IndustryVideo game development
FirstKirby gameKirby's Dream Land (1992)
LatestKirby gameKirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World (2025)
Other gamesMostKirby games
Super Smash Bros.
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Date founded21 February 1980
Current presidentShigefumi Kawase
"HAL Laboratory" on otherNIWA wikis:
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HAL Laboratory, Inc. (株式会社ハル研究所Kabushikigaisha Haru-kenkyūjo), also known asHAL Lab (ハル研Haru-ken) or previouslyHALKEN, is a Japanese video game development company closely affiliated withNintendo throughout its history. One of its founding members,Satoru Iwata, eventually became the president of Nintendo. Among the company's many creations are theKirby series andSuper Smash Bros. series.

History[edit]

Satoru Iwata (left) and Mikio Ikeda, photographed for issue 0 ofMSX Magazine. After HAL Laboratory spun off its non-Nintendo business into HAL Corporation, Iwata and Ikeda would head the two separated entities.

1980-1992, beforeKirby[edit]

In 1978, the Seibu Department Stores flagship location in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, opened the first personal computer display corner in Japan; this acted as a focal point for a group of computer enthusiasts who became friends and ultimately started HAL Laboratory in 1980,[1] developing peripherals and games for personal computers and creating modest hits such as theEggerland series for the MSX. Iwata in retrospect has given two differing accounts of the reason behind the company's name. In his 2005 GDC keynote, he suggested the name derives fromHAL 9000,[2] the sentient computer featuring throughout theSpace Odyssey series of science-fiction works. However, Iwata later claimed in a 2012 interview with ZombiU developers at Ubisoft that "HAL was named as such because each letter put us one step ahead of IBM!"[3]

In his second year of employment with the company, Iwata heard about an upcoming console from Nintendo called the Family Computer (or Famicom, later re-fashioned as theNintendo Entertainment System in overseas markets). This prompted Iwata to visit Kyoto to ask Nintendo to allow him and HAL to develop software for the Famicom.[4][1] While Iwata had never tried and only believed he could program games for the Famicom, this belief was far from baseless, as the Famicom shared its CPU architecture with the legendary6502 CPU at the heart of the Commodore 8-bit computers on which Iwata had cut his teeth. HAL's first projects for Nintendo came in 1983, when they were tapped to port four Atari 2600 games to the Famicom as launch titles for a planned Atari-distributed international version of the system; three of them –Defender II,Joust, andMillipede – were eventually released in 1987 in Japan and 1988 in North America.[5][6][7] Though the deal between Atari and Nintendo collapsed following the North American video game industry crash, resulting in Nintendo handling international distribution themselves in 1985,[8] HAL would maintain a close working relationship with Nintendo, and would become a regular developer for their hardware from 1984 onward, collaborating onNES Pinball[9] and porting itsEggerland games to their consoles along with original titles such asRevenge of the 'Gator andNew Ghostbusters II.

However, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy by 1992, a typical victim of thedisastrous aftermath of the Japanese asset price bubble (an event so singular that Japanese media simply refer to it asバブル崩壊 or "the bubble collapse"). Retrospective accounts of this period of hardship ascribe a near-mythical quality toMetal Slader Glory, a costly and elaborate adventure game that took somewhere between four and six years to develop.[10][11] The early days of this long development cycle happened to coincide with the heights of the bubble boom while the game would only be finished in time to release as the bubble was about to burst. Although the game's director would claim that the game was successful enough for the initial (and only) production run to quickly sell out,[10]Glory was a focal point for HAL Laboratory's internal disarray, with Masahiro Sakurai recalling overhearing a furious Iwata in management discussions about how the company could possibly recoupGlory's development costs.[11] While Iwata would later describeGlory as a mistake (「間違い」) strictly from a management perspective, he also recalled a larger vicious cycle at HAL Laboratory of pushing unsatisfactory games to release to recoup development costs, only for this to result in poor reception and sales that put further pressure on subsequent games to recoup costs.[1] Contemporary accounts of HAL Laboratory'sde facto bankruptcy from magazines likeAsahi Pasocom andCredit & Law do not blame a single point of failure likeGlory, noting a general lack of hits and sales numbers that were consistently below expectations. These accounts point out that such modest sales hurt the company at a time when it was pursuing a number of expansive ventures, such as an American subsidiary in Oregon, and a recently constructed development center in Yamanashi that had cost around ¥1.1 billion to build.[12]

1992-present, withKirby[edit]

It was against this background of financial difficulty and management conflicts that Sakurai was developing a beginner-friendly platforming game calledTwinkle☆Popo. Seeing the appeal of the game, Shigeru Miyamoto offered for Nintendo to market and publish the game once it was reborn asKirby's Dream Land.[13] BeyondKirby, while the company formally entered bankruptcy and composition proceedings in June of 1992 with approximately ¥5 billion in liabilities,[14] Nintendo would help HAL Laboratory rebuild on the condition that Iwata be appointed as President of HAL Laboratory.[15][1] Having started HAL's relationship with Nintendo a decade prior, Iwata officially took the position of President of HAL Laboratory with Nintendo's backing in 1993, with HAL promising to pay back ¥1.5 billion in debt over six years.[16][17] Iwata's leadership and Nintendo's investment (including into the sales and marketing of HAL's games) would see HAL Laboratory focus on breaking the vicious cycle that led to the company's financial hardship.[1]

A part of the original company split off in 1992 to become HAL Corporation,[18] which would continue previous work on non-Nintendo products, such as new entries to theEggerland series forWindows computers,[19] and updated versions of the 1990 Good Design Award-winning[20][21] Crossam 2 universal remote.[22] This entity appears to have gone defunct sometime in 2002.[23][24]

Meanwhile, HAL Laboratory focused exclusively on developing Nintendo products, such as their newly-introducedKirby, while providing development support for other titles such asEarthBound andPokémon Stadium. By 1999, HAL Laboratory paid off its debt,[16] and Iwata was offered a position at Nintendo as the Head of Corporate Planning. He later became Nintendo's president, and held this position until his death in 2015. In July of 2001, at the time of production of the animeKirby: Right Back at Ya!, HAL Laboratory and Nintendo would establish a joint subsidiary, "Warpstar, Inc.", to manage theKirby intellectual property and copyright. Warpstar, Inc. was consolidated into Nintendo and restructured as Nintendo Stars, Inc. in 2025; it still manages theKirby brand in addition to other Nintendo IP.[25][26] To this day, HAL continues to primarily develop for Nintendo platforms, and creates new entries to theKirby series, as well as other original titles such asPicross 3D,BOXBOY!, andPart Time UFO (the last via its mobile development branch, HAL Egg).

HAL's corporate headquarters are in Kanda, a region of the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo. They share the building with Nintendo, its subsidiaries, andGame Freak. They also continue to operate their development center in Kai, Yamanashi, where Mt. Fuji features prominently in the skyline. The company's Tokyo development center was originally located in the Nintendo Tokyo Prefecture Building in Nihonbashi, Chuo, Tokyo, before consolidation in 2003; until 2020, the Tokyo headquarters were in a separate building in Kanda. The image of HAL's Yamanashi building features in several of the company's products. As of July 1, 2024, the company has 242 employees.[27]

Logo[edit]

Three of HAL Laboratory's logos:(left to right) the original logo, the "spring" logo, and the Dream Hatcher used today.

The corporate logo is known as theDream Hatcher[28] (a.k.a.Inutamago;犬たまご "Dog Eggs"[29]), which depicts a dog similar to adachshund incubating several eggs. According to a 2003 Nintendo Power interview aboutKirby Air Ride, producer Masayoshi Tanimura notes that the dog is a fictional creation and that the team does not think of the dog like a dachshund. Tanimura explains that the logo represents deep thought into "incubating completely new ideas that eventually hatch into incredibly fun games".[30]Shigesato Itoi conceived the logo; he had the idea in mind for over twenty years prior to pitching it to HAL, and introduced the company toGugi Akiyama to create the final design of the logo.[31] In Itoi's mind, the eggs may hatch into birds or something else entirely, but what matters is that they will hatch properly no matter how they are warmed. The logo is meant to represent a "bond" — an unexpected bond, representing HAL as a company formed around bonds.[29] The Dream Hatcher has been the symbol of HAL Laboratory since December 1998.

The English name "Dream Hatcher" was first seen inKirby: Planet Robobot. It is a play on "dreamcatcher," a charm originating from Native American culture which protects children by ensnaring bad dreams like a spider's web. Prior to this, its appearance inKirby: Triple Deluxe was translated as "Golden Egg Statue" (referring to its appearance as aStone transformation). The Japanese name "Inutamago" is still seen in some English-language material, such as HAL Laboratory's official website.

The logo immediately preceding the Dream Hatcher, seen in games likeKirby Super Star andKirby's Dream Land 3, was the "spring" logo (「バネ」マーク) introduced in February of 1991.[32][33] In artwork for the October 2021 issue of Nintendo Dream magazine, Shinya Kumazaki notes a possible game of word association, from "spring" in the sense of a metal coil, to "spring" in the sense of the season, which translates to 春 (haru) in Japanese, homophonic with the company's name.[34]

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 ofEarthBound,Sim City 2000, variousPokémon spin-off titles, and others. They have also worked on hardware for Nintendo, including for theNintendo Switch.

For the full list of HAL's works, seethis link.

Notable staff of HAL Laboratory (past and present)[edit]

Jun Ishikawa,Hirokazu Ando, andYuuta Ogasawara, the composers who worked onKirby Star Allies, alongside series directorShinya Kumazaki.
The HALNOTE development team in 1986: Satoru Iwata, Mr. Suzuki, Mr. Kaneda and Mr. Seki.

Presidents[edit]

The following people are past and present Presidents of HAL Laboratory.[32]

Key Creators[edit]

Composers[edit]

The HAL Laboratory Dream Band, consisting of most of the company's sound team. From left to right: Megumi Ohara on flute, Shogo Sakai on electric guitar, Tadashi Ikegami on saxophone, Yuuta Ogasawara on drums, Hirokazu Ando on electric bass, and Jun Ishikawa on keyboard.
See also:HAL Laboratory music equipment

References to HAL in theKirby series[edit]

Many references to HAL Laboratory are seen throughout theKirby series, with one of the most common being theHAL Room, showing the company's name as spelled inStar Blocks.

In many games of theKirby series, HAL includes self-referential easter eggs, typical in the form of their name or the Dream Hatcher logo. The most famous of these are the hiddenHAL Rooms, which appear in numerousKirby games. The Japanese pronunciation of HAL (ハル) can be separated into 8 (は) and 6 (る). Some HAL Rooms can only be entered if the player waits in a certain area for86 seconds. Furthermore, some games, such asDedede's Drum Dash Deluxe andKirby Star Allies, award a high score of86,555 under special circumstances. In Japanese, 5 is pronounced as "go" (ご), making it "HAL go go go".Team Kirby Clash also awards39,860 experience points upon reaching level ten: "39" is read assan-kyu, or the English phrase "thank you", making it "thank you, HAL".

Besides this, several names of characters, places, and objects in theKirby series may be references to HAL, such as theHalberd,Halcandra,Haldera Volcano,President Haltmann, and hisHaltmann Works Company. The three levels inNew Challenge Stages ofKirby's Dream Collection Special Edition are namedHappinessHall,ApricotAtrium, andLastLand, and inKirby and the Forgotten Land, three major companies seen throughout the stages are namedHoline,Alivel, andLightron. Also inKirby and the Forgotten Land,Fecto Forgo's ID number, ID-F86, is another reference to HAL. The race car used forCar Mouth inCircuit Speedway also has "86" on its side.

The Japanese version ofKirby Star Allies has many references to HAL through its fictional language. The fortressJambastion is calledジャマハルダ (Jamahalda). The baseJambandra is calledマジュハルガロア (Majuhalgalor), and the HAL letters can also be found on the surface of Jambandra. TheStaff ability enemy,Jammerjab, is calledジャハルビート (Jahal Beat). Theweaponless Jammerjab counterpart is calledジャハルビリーバ (Jahal Believer).

There are several references to HAL's other works within theKirby series. For example,Lololo & Lalala come from theEggerland series (where they are named Lolo and Lala), andMoto Shotzo is based on the main character of the gameTrax. TheKirby Quest mode inKirby Mass Attack referencesArcana, which was Kirby's technical debut as a character; he cameos in the opening sequence.Qbby from theBOXBOY! series has also made several cameo appearances in theKirby series, andvice-versa. Symbols of HAL often appear in theStone ability's transformations, such as the Dream Hatcher and HAL's Yamanashi headquarters.

Trivia[edit]

Examples of Kirby artwork featured innengajō from HAL Laboratory.
2021
2022
2023
  • Since at least 2004[35] and until 2023, HAL Laboratory had a tradition of sendingnengajō (New Year's Day greeting postcards) featuring a new Kirby illustration for each year (see examples for2016,2019,2020, and further examples at right). These were principally sent to staff and other official personnel. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some fans that sent their ownnengajō to HAL Laboratory's address without prior association received a postcard as well, although in this case the postcard would be a winter's greeting (寒中お見舞い, a response to anengajō sent after New Year's Day has already passed).[36]
    • Since HAL Laboratory joined Twitter in May 2015, these illustrations have also been posted to Twitter, first with the 2016nengajō but then regularly each year starting with the 2019nengajō. These versions of the illustrations include greeting phrases but do not include the physical addresses that would be relevant for physical cards.
    • This message (only in Japanese) accompanied the 2023 physical postcards sent to correspondents, suggesting mailed greetings would be eliminated going forward:[36][37]

なお誠に勝手ながら本年を最後としてみなさまへの年賀状や
寒中お見舞いを控えさせていただくこととなりました

Additionally, somewhat arbitrarily, we will pull back on sendingnengajō or winter's greetings, with this year being the last year.

今後は当社SNSなどでご挨拶させていただければ幸いです

Please greet us on our social media feeds going forward.

  • Since 2019, HAL Laboratory's Twitter account continues to maintain a tradition of posting a photo of a plush Kirby dressed like a peach in foam netting as a summer's greeting, as HAL's home prefecture of Yamanashi is known for its peaches.[38] The tradition takes place every year in late July or early August, and specifically on July 19 in several years to mark Yamanashi Peach Day as designated by the prefecture's fruit association.[39]

Gallery[edit]

"Dir. Kumazaki, from HAL Laboratory Where You Can See Mount Fuji"[edit]

Shinya Kumazaki drew these illustrations for a limited series of columns contributed to Nintendo DREAM magazine in 2021. These were then shared on HAL Laboratory's Twitter account in contemporaneous posts.

  • The spring logo preceding the Dream Hatcher, with other characters on the periphery: the Dream Hatcher, a Bouncy, and a dragon king referring to the Yamanashi building's location in Ryuoshinmachi, Kai, Yamanashi
    The spring logo preceding the Dream Hatcher, with other characters on the periphery: the Dream Hatcher, aBouncy, and a dragon king referring to the Yamanashi building's location in Ryuoshinmachi, Kai, Yamanashi
  • A collection of characters from HAL Laboratory's (and Kumazaki's own) history
    A collection of characters from HAL Laboratory's (and Kumazaki's own) history
  • The Dream Hatcher atop the Yamanashi building with cherry blossoms in full bloom, surrounded by numerous pieces of the company's past and present (full list in image description)
    The Dream Hatcher atop the Yamanashi building with cherry blossoms in full bloom, surrounded by numerous pieces of the company's past and present (full list in image description)

External links[edit]

References

  1. ↑1.01.11.21.31.4Interview with Satoru Iwata inUsed Games magazine, volume 12 (1999 autumn) (shmuplations.com translation)
  2. ↑"We worked until midnight or later every night, and that group of friends is what became the company known as HAL today. The name came from the computer in the movie 2001: Space Odyssey.[sic]" –Satoru Iwata (GDC 2005 keynote) (IGN transcript andWayback Machine snapshot of transcript)
  3. ↑Iwata Asks: ZombiU (Wayback Machine archive). Note also that the creators of2001: A Space Odyssey had to explicitly deny thatHAL 9000's name derived from shifting the letters of IBM. The denial is perfectly sensible, given that IBM provided technical advice for the computer and were prominently featured elsewhere in the film version (see[1],[2]), and neither director Stanley Kubrick nor writer Arthur C Clarke would have wished to embarrass IBM. On the other hand, it would have been equally perfectly sensible for HAL Laboratory to be named (either partly, along with another namesake in HAL 9000, or entirely) based on a one-letter shift from IBM, the very same shift denied as the derivation for HAL 9000's name. HAL Laboratory never developed for the IBM PC or had any significant connection to IBM, mostly developing for Commodore or Japanese personal computers.
  4. ↑Satoru Iwata's appearance on the 17th Nintendo Channel special episode of Game Center CX, featuringBalloon Fight
  5. ↑Defender II (NES).The Cutting Room Floor. Retrieved December 9, 2023.
  6. ↑Millipede (NES, HAL Laboratory).The Cutting Room Floor. Retrieved December 9, 2023.
  7. ↑Joust (NES).The Cutting Room Floor. Retrieved December 9, 2023.
  8. ↑Turner, Benjamin; Nutt, Christian.How the NES revived an industry and captivated a generation.GameSpy. Archived July 1, 2004. Retrieved December 9, 2023.
  9. ↑HAL Laboratory: Company Profile - nsidr
  10. ↑10.010.1Metal Slader Glory – Developer Interview Collection, Peter Barnard's translation of two interviews withMetal Slader Glory director Yoshimiru Hoshi
  11. ↑11.011.1Shigesato Itoi's interview with Masahiro Sakurai about Satoru Iwata
  12. ↑Twitter thread with scans from the August 1992 issues ofAsahi Pasocom andCredit & Law magazines (direct image links forAsahi Pasocom article andCredit & Law;Wayback Machine snapshot of Twitter thread)
  13. ↑"あのタイトルでゲームボーイのソフトとして出す予定でしたが、「もったいない」と宮本茂さんがおっしゃって、調整して、任天堂発売の『星のカービィ』に変わるんですね。" Translation: "We were going to release it under that title, but then Shigeru Miyamoto-san said 'mottainai'['it would be a shame', or even 'what a waste' in its most direct use], so we tuned it up and changed it into the Nintendo-published Kirby of the Stars[Kirby's Dream Land]." –Satoru Iwata (ほぼ日刊イトイ新聞 - 社長に学べ！)
  14. ↑Game Machine Magazine (1992-08-01), page 4 (direct image link)
  15. ↑"岩田さんは、いまはHAL研究所の社長だが、もともとは、ひとりのバイトの学生だったらしい。どうして社長になったのかといえば、倒産寸前でニュースにまでとりあげられたこの会社に、「岩田が社長をやるなら助ける」という、援助者が現れたからだ。"Translation: "Iwata-san is now President of HAL Laboratory, but originally he was just a student working as a part-time employee. How did he become president? Because with the company in the news on the verge of bankruptcy, a benefactor[who could only have been Nintendo under Hiroshi Yamauchi's leadership, given historical context] appeared and said 'if Iwata will agree to be President, then we will help you'." –Shigesato Itoi (ほぼ日刊イトイ新聞-糸井重里の脱線WEB革命)
  16. ↑16.016.1"会社が広い意味で倒産して、借金からはじまるわけです。そのときの負債総額は、何十億円もありまして。【中略】結果的には十五億円を六年間で返すことになりました。" –Satoru Iwata (ほぼ日刊イトイ新聞 - 社長に学べ！)
  17. ↑Professor Hiroichi Yanase's profile of Satoru Iwata based on the Hobonichi bookIwata-San, part 4 of 5
  18. ↑株式会社ハル・コーポレーション会社概要 (Wayback Machine snapshot from 1998; note in particular the date of establishment, 設立 : １９９２年８月３日)
  19. ↑HAL Corporation page for 「復活！エッガーランド」; the company also featured artwork ofLolo andLala onits website
  20. ↑Twitter post with photo of Crossam 2 ad
  21. ↑Good Design Award official website
  22. ↑A press release about the Crossam 2 Plus, circulated to publications likeASCII andAV Watch, would be one of the final pieces of news from HAL Corporation.
  23. ↑To what extent is HAL Laboratory "Nintendo"? | NinDB Boards Jun 26, 2011
  24. ↑While no official source exists to confirm the timing of HAL Corporation's demise, boththe Japanese Wikipedia page on theEggerland series andAniwota Wiki's entry on HAL Laboratory suggest that the company dissolved in 2002, supported by the company's website becoming inaccessible beyond March of 2002 (example).
  25. ↑Iwata Asks:Kirby's Epic Yarn - Nintendo UK
  26. ↑News Release: Aug. 27, 2025 "Strengthening Ancillary Use of Films Featuring Nintendo Intellectual Property" (Nintendo Co., Ltd. press release)
  27. ↑HAL Laboratory official company profile (English version; Wayback Machine snapshots ofJapanese andEnglish profiles available)
  28. ↑This is what theKirby: Planet RobobotSticker depicting the logo is named.
  29. ↑29.029.1How Inutamago came to be - Interview about the Dream Hatcher symbol on the official website
  30. ↑NP Interviews HAL Laboratories about Kirby Air Ride! | IGN Boards Dec 30, 2003
  31. ↑ほぼ日刊イトイ新聞 - 樹の上の秘密基地 第４弾
  32. ↑32.032.1沿革 | COMPANY | ハル研究所 /Our History | COMPANY | HAL Laboratory (Wayback Machine snapshots of bothJapanese andEnglish versions available)
  33. ↑Twitter link from HAL Laboratory(Wayback Machine snapshot)
  34. ↑Twitter link from HAL Laboratory(Wayback Machine snapshot)(direct image link)
  35. ↑20th Anniversary Kirby Pupupu Encyclopedia, page 233
  36. ↑36.036.1Twitter link from a 2023 correspondent(Wayback Machine snapshot)
  37. ↑Twitter link from a multi-year correspondent(Wayback Machine snapshot)
  38. ↑See Wayback Machine archives of Twitter posts from2019,2020,2021,2022,2023,2024, and2025.
  39. ↑See thisinformational poster (archive) from theassociation's website.
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