Namco today celebrated the 50th anniversary of its foundation in Tokyo. The party obviously focused on Namco founder and chairman Masaya Nakamura, the 78-year old who founded the company under its original name Nakamura. The chairman recalled the enterprise's humble beginngings, mentioning that the company posted a net loss of 170,000 yen ($1,554.50 US) on sales of 1.47 million yen ($13,441.80 US) in the year of its foundation. For reference, Namco posted an operating profit of 14.4 billion yen ($131.68 million US) on sales of 172.5 billion yen ($1.58 billion US) during the fiscal year 2003/2004.

Following his speech, he introduced the new team of company's executives, led by president Kyuushirou Takagi as well as the heads of Namco's overseas divisions. Among the guests were former Japanese prime minister Yoshirou Mori as well as Sony vice president and Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi. Mori recalled his first meeting with Nakamura in 1969, when he was first elected a member of the National Diet and went on to comment on the IT initiative which he initiated during his one year term as prime minister from April 2000 to April 2001. "PlayStation father" Ken Kutaragi remarked on Namco's support for the original PlayStation at a time, when most Japanese third party publishers were still viewing Sony's entrance into the videogame business with skepticism. He wished Namco another successful 50 years and hoped for future cooperation between the two companies to create new forms of entertainment.

• Famitsu