Hudson president Hidetoshi Endou revealed that the company will relocate its headquarters to Tokyo this July. The company was founded in Sapporo in 1973 and since then its headquarters was located in the political and economic center of the northern island of Hokkaido. According to Endou, the move is aimed to enable a closer cooperation with Hudson's parent company Konami. Following a lay-off of about 100 staff, the company will continue to employ 460 people. More than 200 of them will continue to develop game software in Sapporo.

Following a major loss during the fiscal year that ended on March 31st, Hudson approached its largest shareholder Konami for assistance. Konami acquired an additional 9% in shares to bring its stake in Hudson to 54%. Hudson has since then become a consolidated subsidiary of Konami. Only this month, vice president and chief financial officer Osamu Kishima has been appointed representative director. The 47-year old Konami veteran joined Hudson as vice president in October 2004. His promotion and the relocation of the headquarters are considered signs of Konami's increased influence over the makers of Tengai Makyou (Far East of Eden) and Bomberman.

Following the relocation of Hudson's headquarters only two major Japanese game companies continue to operate headquarters located outside Tokyo: Capcom in Osaka and Nintendo in Kyoto. The same counts for Nippon Ichi Software (Gifu prefecture), Level 5, CyberConnect (both Fukuoka) and Gust (Nagano).

• Hokkaido Shimbun