The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot ( talk) 23 July 2021 [1].
They may not possess the same level of recognition in the Western world as Nintendo or Sega, but Namco is undeniably one of the video game industry's most important, valuable, and beloved developers. The makers of many genre-defining classics, from Pac-Man to Xevious to Ridge Racer, Namco set itself apart from other companies through its unique corporate philosophy, forward-thinking, and ability to adapt in a constantly changing market. This article covers the entirety of Namco's 50 year history, from its origins as an operator of rocking horse rides in the 1950s to its 2005 merger with toymaker Bandai.
This article has been the focus of my editing for the past two years now. A GAN, two peer reviews, and hundreds of edits later, I believe it is finally able to be bestowed the honor of being one of Wikipedia's best articles (Sega's probably getting lonely in there). At over 131,795 bytes, it is certainly the biggest article I've ever worked on. Trying to summarize a company with a 50 year history was certainly a challenge, and underwent at least three rewrites. Due to the lack of "big" anniversaries for the foreseeable future, I am not interested in having this be featured on the main page on a specific date.
The article in its current state wouldn't have been possible without the help of Red Phoenix and Indrian, who have both been incredibly helpful with the writing and sourcing. I greatly thank them for helping get this page into the state it is in now. I also dedicate this to the hundreds of editors that have maintained it for so many years now. Thank you for reading this, and I look forward to your comments. Namcokid 47 18:43, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
The amount of work invested into this article should not go unnoticed. This is probably one of the best video game company articles i've seen on Wikipedia and it has my highest support vote! Roberth Martinez ( talk) 20:57, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
The article seems to be exceptionally well-written, and is among the best video game articles I've seen on the site. - Shadowboxer2005 ( talk) 05:58, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Can this be clarified? I looked at both pages of the referenced source, [2] , but Google Translate is hot garbage at Japanese sometimes. Deficit compared to what? If the two companies were each running a 15 billion yen deficit before, nothing really changed, as an example. An explanation would be nice but "impatience" is not really a sufficient reason for such a deficit to occur. Like, was Bandai impatient in that they overpayed for buying out Namco's stock and paid a higher premium than they really needed to? And when did this deficit show up, anyway? Normally it takes a bit of time for clashing corporate cultures to even "matter", unless the first thing Bandai did after the purchase complete was massive employee buyouts or the like. Has a native Japanese speaker reviewed that source? It have any more details? This sentence raises more questions than answers as written currently. SnowFire ( talk) 20:41, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Nikkimaria ( talk) 20:57, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Don’t expect me to move fast; I’ve been deficient at editing in the last couple of months, I know. That being said, I wouldn’t miss this party for the world. Expect me to, at the very least, contribute a source review, since I know that’s usually the part others don’t want to do, and expect it to be thorough and detailed to satisfy the FAC criteria. Red Phoenix talk 17:37, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
As a note for FAC coordinators, I have previously provided feedback for this article at my talk page, and Archive 5 of that page has my previous comments. That, however, is the extent of my past involvement in the article. Namcokid47 has done quite a good job with this article.
Now, onto a cursory look at the sources:
I hope to return soon with a more detailed look. Red Phoenix talk 17:03, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Let's give this a start at a more detailed look. Expect this to take a while, as well as several passes as changes are made. To ensure that when I refer to a reference by its number it's the same for you as it is for me, I'll note this first pass is for revision id 1017821592:
That's all I have time for at the moment, but we'll continue later. Red Phoenix talk 00:20, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
Let's keep going, shall we? Numbers as of revision 1019357606:
I'm liking the progress so far. I'll try to continue on this weekend - I know my schedule is not the greatest anymore, and for good IRL reason, but that's why I'm glad we're starting this now. I will do my best to be timely. Red Phoenix talk 02:09, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Let's keep going. As of revision 1020893203:
*60: Forgive me for asking, but what makes Kill Screen a reliable source? I did see the author claims to be an established video game historian, but it's not someone I'm familiar with.
Took a break here. Continuing:
That concludes a first pass of the sources. There is a lot to be done here, I know, but no one ever said consistent citations were the fun part. I can try and jump in to give you a hand if time allows, but it's been tough lately for me to find available time. After you have made some decisions and set to fixing, I'll do a "final pass" to catch stragglers and any loose ends. I'll also check for any additional sourcing inconsistencies and conduct a few spot-checks, as this would have been Namcokid47's first FAC and those are usually mandatory for an editor's first. Red Phoenix talk 03:26, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Red Phoenix, I have now added page numbers to book sources, and I believe our massive source review is finally finished. It is a lot, however, so if I missed something, be sure to let me know. I would just like to thank you for taking the time to do such a thorough review of the citations. No offense to the original nominator, who did fantastic work on the article, but this is one area where he did leave me a mess. Without your dedication, it would have been far more difficult to bring these all in line. Gog the Mild, assuming Red signs off on the sources, this means we are just waiting to hear back from Nikkimaria to see if they still have any issues with the one image that still needs final approval. After that, we can finally bring this review to a successful conclusion. Indrian ( talk) 21:58, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
I've subheaded this discussion aside so that it does not get convoluted with my comments. I hope that's all right. Red Phoenix talk 15:44, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
@ FAC coordinators: So can we move forward on this basis? I don’t know what needs to happen procedurally. Indrian ( talk) 16:57, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, Idrian, for picking this one up. Namcokid put a lot of work into this and I would have been dissapointed to see it go to waste. Wanted to pop in and say Support on prose, however. It's a good read! I might come in with further comments in the future, but this is where I stand. Panini! 🥪 14:52, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm a little concerned about The name Namco, an abbreviation of Nakamura Manufacturing Company
(and the related matter of the English name of "Nakamura Manufacturing Company"), which looks suspicious on its face (why would they take the first two letters of the first and third words but not the second, and in Japanese ナ ム コ looks more like an abbreviation of なか むら コンパニー) and a quick Googling brought up
this tweet from Bandai-Namco's official Japanese Twitter account that directly contradicts it and would seem to make more sense to begin with. The claim appeared in the article before the accompanying Kotaku source was produced,
[3]
[4] which makes me suspicious of
WP:CITOGENESIS (I have in the past seen Kotaku articles both obviously get their information from Wikipedia and present historical and Japanological research that is some below the standards of Wikipedia). I don't doubt that the former 中村製作所 referred to itself variously as "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" and "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company", given that even now many Japanese companies seem to have no idea what their official English name is supposed to be, but if we are going to prioritize one over the other I kinda feel like it should be the one that the company itself says is the origin of the name our article uses as its title. Granted, sources, especially English-language ones, are difficult to find to support the existence of an English translation of an old name for a defunct company, especially because of the aforementioned CITOGENESIS, but it seems very likely that offline sources about this company from the pre-wiki days can be found if the above tweet is insufficient. (Unfortunately, when I tried doing an image search to see if old Pac-Man machines had English copyright information printed somewhere, the closest I got was to find out that apparently the company's US patent for its game machine was granted to "Kabushiki Kaisha Nakamura Seisakusho".)
Hijiri 88 (
聖
やや) 14:16, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
a 1985 article in English by the Japanaese trade publication Journal of Japanese Trade and Industry written by a Japanese author and based largely on an interview with company founder Masaya Nakamura, refers to the original company name as Nakamura Manufacturing Co., Ltd.This is really interesting, but it would be a good idea in the future to provide a link or a specific article title: I Googled the title of the publication and the name "Masaya Nakamura" and got no exact matches before realizing that the title had an ampersand and found this. This does indeed prove that the English name "Nakamura Manufacturing" (which is indeed a literal translation of 中村製作所, and therefore the one most likely to be employed by an author writing after the fact based on an interview that was likely conducted in Japanese) was attested before Wikipedia, but as I said confusion within Japanese companies, let alone among third parties, already made this a near-certainty, and the article (which, to be fair, I skimmed to find the use of the name "Nakamura Manufacturing") doesn't seem to indicate a connection between the precise wording "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" and the then-current name of "Namco" (halfway through the second paragraph on the second page, the author just starts referring to the company as Namco without comment), so the source can't be used for the claim that the name "Namco" is an abbreviation of anything in particular. Meanwhile, while "製作所" does not mean "amusement manufacturing", that is a pretty intuitive translation for a company that was primarily active in the amusement park industry rather than, say, steel manufacturing, and while it's possible that the employee who wrote the tweet was duped by a hoax on Japanese Wikipedia's article on Masaya Nakamura, given that the tweet doesn't mention him it seems more likely that if he/she was looking at a Wikipedia article it would have been this one, knew or heard from someone else within the company that this was incorrect, and tweeted the correct information accordingly.
「超発想集団・ナムコ」PHP研究所、p.119、1984年、ISBN 4-569-21327-8while the claim that it is an abbreviation of "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company" is attributed to
「新明解ナム語辞典」日本ソフトバンク、1987年、ISBN 978-4-930795-86-1I'm loath to trust Japanese Wikipedia over a GA-class article on our own site under the best of circumstances, but it does strike me as odd that we cite the former claim to a Kotaku article and the latter source. I'll see if I can get to a library and check both of these (mid-1980s) sources out over next weekend, but given that both of them are old and obscure enough that neither is available in any form on Amazon, it seems unlikely that the Osaka public libraries will have them on-hand...
The name Namco, an abbreviation of either Nakamura Manufacturing Company<SOURCE> or Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company,<SOURCE> was introduced in 1971 as a brand for several of its machines.<SOURCE[S?]>or (b) remove the 新明解ナム語辞典 citation. At present I'm leaning (b) since adding content based on an assumption that another Wikipedia article has accurately represented its cited source's contents is borderline WP:CIRCULAR. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 02:15, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Nakamura Seisakusho, with the ongoing success of F-1 (October 1976) changed its company name, and this was the first time the abbreviation Namco was used [emphasis added]. This was a shortening of the English name that the company sometimes used overseas, namely "Nakamura Manufacturing Company". [Then something about this becoming the l慌矢(?) of the company's corporate brand strategy.], which, while supporting the root of the abbreviation currently cited in our article, but seems to contradict the date. It's theoretically possible to ignore the explicit wording used in the quote (ここで初めて○○が使われた) and interpret it as meaning that the official name change happened in 1976 by using an abbreviation that had been introduced in 1971, but that's not what the source says -- I was originally going to say it might be an idea to replace 新明解ナム語辞典 with this source (title?), but if it contradicts the other information in the sentence that can't be used.
Are you okay with Kotaku being the source for Namco being a contraction of Nakamura Manufacturing Company?(I'm assuming that only your final sentence is directed at Red Phoenix specifically and not me or "the room".) As I said above, no, but I'm willing to agree to disagree if the consensus among other editors is that Kotaku is reliable for this kind of information.
I don’t see a citogenesis problem hereMy view is that citogenesis is always a problem with pop culture topics (like video games) that touch on slightly less pop-culture-y topics (like the pre-1980 corporate history of any Japanese company) and we need to be super-skeptical of sources like Kotaku in such circumstances. Even in cases like this, where I believe you that the "NAkamura Manufacturing COmpany → Namco" story predates Wikipedia, it may well be the case that prior to Wikipedia there was an equally viable "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing COmpany → Namco" story that has since been suppressed as a result of English-language pop culture sources copying Wikipedia, which may not technically be citogenesis (which implies a completely made up statement that subsequently spread to other sources) but it's pretty close. Personally, I would prefer if the source you quoted above replaced the Kotaku one, but as long as I know that such a source exists (as I now do) and others are happy with the Kotaku citation, it's not something I see as worth fighting over. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 01:08, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Okay, so I'm very sorry it took me a while to make it here, but that's just the way IRL has been treating me lately. Anyway, Indrian, here's what I would tell you: normally, I'd say yes. According to WP:VG/S, Kotaku is considered a reliable source for all news articles after 2010, though this isn't exactly "news". They do tend to do well with retrospectives, however, and I've used them with some caution before. That being said, let me poke another hole in this one. In doing some searching on "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company", I didn't find that, but I did find several occurrences of "Nakamura Amusement Machine Manufacturing Company". And here it is again in the Wall Street Journal, which is listed at WP:RSP, and at Gamasutra. There are actually many more I'm finding, and they're all tied to obituaries of Nakamura. At least one contradicts Kotaku by saying the initialism happened after a 1977 rename, whereas Kotaku claims 1971. As it stands, I'm trying to find a more period-based source that might help us out, but I think there's enough here to poke a hole in this particular claim to this particular source given that we have disagreement in other, similar sources also considered reliable. Red Phoenix talk 03:01, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't doubt that the former 中村製作所 referred to itself variously as A, B, C, etc.) without shedding any light on the origin of the abbreviation, and the latter actually just clouds the dating issue even further by showing that as of 2003 Namco's English website said that the "[u]se of [the] Namco brand name [began]" in 1972 (given the preponderance of other sources, I suspect this is either a typo or a factual error). I don't think we're going to solve the mystery with the resources we have at present, so why can't we just do what Red Phoenix suggested above and say either that different sources give different etymologies (and cite at least one source for each, without necessarily listing them in-line) or that the name "Namco" was originally a brand-name based on an abbreviation of the company's name (without actually stating what said company's name is)? I didn't think it would be an issue so I didn't mention it up above, but is the problem that the latter solution would lead readers to assume that the correct origin was "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" because said name is cited elsewhere in the article? I don't see that as an issue, and I seem to be the one who's most sceptical of that origin, so I don't see why anyone else would see it as important. Anyway:
there is as yet no evidence Namco itself actually used in its dealings in the English-speaking worldThis is a little problematic, as it depends on what you consider to constitute "the English-speaking world" -- English has been a de facto official language of Japan since before Nakamura Seisakusho was founded, and while even today very few Japanese companies are careful to maintain uniformity in their English branding, it goes without saying that some form of English branding could have been in use even within Japan, let alone in the company's dealings with other parts of Asia where English is used as a lingua franca, even if such would not have appeared in publicly available materials in those countries at the time or now. Even if you reject Niconico News as a source and take "Nakamura Amusement Machine Company" to be either a hoax or an error, there are still three options, all attributable to reliable third-party sources, one of which (Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company) is attributable to a recent first-party source but possibly contradicted by the fact that there are a larger number of old sources that refer to the company (but not the origin of the brand name) as "Nakamura Manufacturing Company". I would think it qualifies as OR to take a bunch of sources that all refer to the company as "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" and claim (in the article space) that this is the origin of the brand name "Namco", especially when multiple reliable sources explicitly say otherwise, and I really don't see why it's still an issue worth arguing over: we should just remove the potentially problematic part of the sentence and change the citations (or insert a WP:COMMENT) so no one misinterprets it in the future. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 05:59, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Lead:
History:
General comments:
If you have a moment to spare, I also have a FAC that could use a review from someone less familiar with the topic. Thanks. Parsecboy ( talk) 00:29, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
While I've come late to this FAC, it does not take away the fact that it is well-written, comprehensive and impeccably sourced. I can't pick anything out which hasn't already been addressed, other than the fact that it is undoubtedly an exemplary article which faithfully represents all the facets of an influential video game company. Well done to Namcokid for his fastidious efforts, and Indian for taking the reins. ♦ jaguar 22:13, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
I could nitpick the prose, but this article already far exceeds the standards of a WP:FA. The research is excellent, and it is very thorough. Perhaps too thorough, if there was such a thing, but it never goes too deep into a tangent. Great work to Indrian for keeping this one going. Shooterwalker ( talk) 21:30, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot ( talk) 23 July 2021 [1].
They may not possess the same level of recognition in the Western world as Nintendo or Sega, but Namco is undeniably one of the video game industry's most important, valuable, and beloved developers. The makers of many genre-defining classics, from Pac-Man to Xevious to Ridge Racer, Namco set itself apart from other companies through its unique corporate philosophy, forward-thinking, and ability to adapt in a constantly changing market. This article covers the entirety of Namco's 50 year history, from its origins as an operator of rocking horse rides in the 1950s to its 2005 merger with toymaker Bandai.
This article has been the focus of my editing for the past two years now. A GAN, two peer reviews, and hundreds of edits later, I believe it is finally able to be bestowed the honor of being one of Wikipedia's best articles (Sega's probably getting lonely in there). At over 131,795 bytes, it is certainly the biggest article I've ever worked on. Trying to summarize a company with a 50 year history was certainly a challenge, and underwent at least three rewrites. Due to the lack of "big" anniversaries for the foreseeable future, I am not interested in having this be featured on the main page on a specific date.
The article in its current state wouldn't have been possible without the help of Red Phoenix and Indrian, who have both been incredibly helpful with the writing and sourcing. I greatly thank them for helping get this page into the state it is in now. I also dedicate this to the hundreds of editors that have maintained it for so many years now. Thank you for reading this, and I look forward to your comments. Namcokid 47 18:43, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
The amount of work invested into this article should not go unnoticed. This is probably one of the best video game company articles i've seen on Wikipedia and it has my highest support vote! Roberth Martinez ( talk) 20:57, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
The article seems to be exceptionally well-written, and is among the best video game articles I've seen on the site. - Shadowboxer2005 ( talk) 05:58, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
Can this be clarified? I looked at both pages of the referenced source, [2] , but Google Translate is hot garbage at Japanese sometimes. Deficit compared to what? If the two companies were each running a 15 billion yen deficit before, nothing really changed, as an example. An explanation would be nice but "impatience" is not really a sufficient reason for such a deficit to occur. Like, was Bandai impatient in that they overpayed for buying out Namco's stock and paid a higher premium than they really needed to? And when did this deficit show up, anyway? Normally it takes a bit of time for clashing corporate cultures to even "matter", unless the first thing Bandai did after the purchase complete was massive employee buyouts or the like. Has a native Japanese speaker reviewed that source? It have any more details? This sentence raises more questions than answers as written currently. SnowFire ( talk) 20:41, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Nikkimaria ( talk) 20:57, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Don’t expect me to move fast; I’ve been deficient at editing in the last couple of months, I know. That being said, I wouldn’t miss this party for the world. Expect me to, at the very least, contribute a source review, since I know that’s usually the part others don’t want to do, and expect it to be thorough and detailed to satisfy the FAC criteria. Red Phoenix talk 17:37, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
As a note for FAC coordinators, I have previously provided feedback for this article at my talk page, and Archive 5 of that page has my previous comments. That, however, is the extent of my past involvement in the article. Namcokid47 has done quite a good job with this article.
Now, onto a cursory look at the sources:
I hope to return soon with a more detailed look. Red Phoenix talk 17:03, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Let's give this a start at a more detailed look. Expect this to take a while, as well as several passes as changes are made. To ensure that when I refer to a reference by its number it's the same for you as it is for me, I'll note this first pass is for revision id 1017821592:
That's all I have time for at the moment, but we'll continue later. Red Phoenix talk 00:20, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
Let's keep going, shall we? Numbers as of revision 1019357606:
I'm liking the progress so far. I'll try to continue on this weekend - I know my schedule is not the greatest anymore, and for good IRL reason, but that's why I'm glad we're starting this now. I will do my best to be timely. Red Phoenix talk 02:09, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Let's keep going. As of revision 1020893203:
*60: Forgive me for asking, but what makes Kill Screen a reliable source? I did see the author claims to be an established video game historian, but it's not someone I'm familiar with.
Took a break here. Continuing:
That concludes a first pass of the sources. There is a lot to be done here, I know, but no one ever said consistent citations were the fun part. I can try and jump in to give you a hand if time allows, but it's been tough lately for me to find available time. After you have made some decisions and set to fixing, I'll do a "final pass" to catch stragglers and any loose ends. I'll also check for any additional sourcing inconsistencies and conduct a few spot-checks, as this would have been Namcokid47's first FAC and those are usually mandatory for an editor's first. Red Phoenix talk 03:26, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Red Phoenix, I have now added page numbers to book sources, and I believe our massive source review is finally finished. It is a lot, however, so if I missed something, be sure to let me know. I would just like to thank you for taking the time to do such a thorough review of the citations. No offense to the original nominator, who did fantastic work on the article, but this is one area where he did leave me a mess. Without your dedication, it would have been far more difficult to bring these all in line. Gog the Mild, assuming Red signs off on the sources, this means we are just waiting to hear back from Nikkimaria to see if they still have any issues with the one image that still needs final approval. After that, we can finally bring this review to a successful conclusion. Indrian ( talk) 21:58, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
I've subheaded this discussion aside so that it does not get convoluted with my comments. I hope that's all right. Red Phoenix talk 15:44, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
@ FAC coordinators: So can we move forward on this basis? I don’t know what needs to happen procedurally. Indrian ( talk) 16:57, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, Idrian, for picking this one up. Namcokid put a lot of work into this and I would have been dissapointed to see it go to waste. Wanted to pop in and say Support on prose, however. It's a good read! I might come in with further comments in the future, but this is where I stand. Panini! 🥪 14:52, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm a little concerned about The name Namco, an abbreviation of Nakamura Manufacturing Company
(and the related matter of the English name of "Nakamura Manufacturing Company"), which looks suspicious on its face (why would they take the first two letters of the first and third words but not the second, and in Japanese ナ ム コ looks more like an abbreviation of なか むら コンパニー) and a quick Googling brought up
this tweet from Bandai-Namco's official Japanese Twitter account that directly contradicts it and would seem to make more sense to begin with. The claim appeared in the article before the accompanying Kotaku source was produced,
[3]
[4] which makes me suspicious of
WP:CITOGENESIS (I have in the past seen Kotaku articles both obviously get their information from Wikipedia and present historical and Japanological research that is some below the standards of Wikipedia). I don't doubt that the former 中村製作所 referred to itself variously as "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" and "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company", given that even now many Japanese companies seem to have no idea what their official English name is supposed to be, but if we are going to prioritize one over the other I kinda feel like it should be the one that the company itself says is the origin of the name our article uses as its title. Granted, sources, especially English-language ones, are difficult to find to support the existence of an English translation of an old name for a defunct company, especially because of the aforementioned CITOGENESIS, but it seems very likely that offline sources about this company from the pre-wiki days can be found if the above tweet is insufficient. (Unfortunately, when I tried doing an image search to see if old Pac-Man machines had English copyright information printed somewhere, the closest I got was to find out that apparently the company's US patent for its game machine was granted to "Kabushiki Kaisha Nakamura Seisakusho".)
Hijiri 88 (
聖
やや) 14:16, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
a 1985 article in English by the Japanaese trade publication Journal of Japanese Trade and Industry written by a Japanese author and based largely on an interview with company founder Masaya Nakamura, refers to the original company name as Nakamura Manufacturing Co., Ltd.This is really interesting, but it would be a good idea in the future to provide a link or a specific article title: I Googled the title of the publication and the name "Masaya Nakamura" and got no exact matches before realizing that the title had an ampersand and found this. This does indeed prove that the English name "Nakamura Manufacturing" (which is indeed a literal translation of 中村製作所, and therefore the one most likely to be employed by an author writing after the fact based on an interview that was likely conducted in Japanese) was attested before Wikipedia, but as I said confusion within Japanese companies, let alone among third parties, already made this a near-certainty, and the article (which, to be fair, I skimmed to find the use of the name "Nakamura Manufacturing") doesn't seem to indicate a connection between the precise wording "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" and the then-current name of "Namco" (halfway through the second paragraph on the second page, the author just starts referring to the company as Namco without comment), so the source can't be used for the claim that the name "Namco" is an abbreviation of anything in particular. Meanwhile, while "製作所" does not mean "amusement manufacturing", that is a pretty intuitive translation for a company that was primarily active in the amusement park industry rather than, say, steel manufacturing, and while it's possible that the employee who wrote the tweet was duped by a hoax on Japanese Wikipedia's article on Masaya Nakamura, given that the tweet doesn't mention him it seems more likely that if he/she was looking at a Wikipedia article it would have been this one, knew or heard from someone else within the company that this was incorrect, and tweeted the correct information accordingly.
「超発想集団・ナムコ」PHP研究所、p.119、1984年、ISBN 4-569-21327-8while the claim that it is an abbreviation of "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company" is attributed to
「新明解ナム語辞典」日本ソフトバンク、1987年、ISBN 978-4-930795-86-1I'm loath to trust Japanese Wikipedia over a GA-class article on our own site under the best of circumstances, but it does strike me as odd that we cite the former claim to a Kotaku article and the latter source. I'll see if I can get to a library and check both of these (mid-1980s) sources out over next weekend, but given that both of them are old and obscure enough that neither is available in any form on Amazon, it seems unlikely that the Osaka public libraries will have them on-hand...
The name Namco, an abbreviation of either Nakamura Manufacturing Company<SOURCE> or Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company,<SOURCE> was introduced in 1971 as a brand for several of its machines.<SOURCE[S?]>or (b) remove the 新明解ナム語辞典 citation. At present I'm leaning (b) since adding content based on an assumption that another Wikipedia article has accurately represented its cited source's contents is borderline WP:CIRCULAR. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 02:15, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Nakamura Seisakusho, with the ongoing success of F-1 (October 1976) changed its company name, and this was the first time the abbreviation Namco was used [emphasis added]. This was a shortening of the English name that the company sometimes used overseas, namely "Nakamura Manufacturing Company". [Then something about this becoming the l慌矢(?) of the company's corporate brand strategy.], which, while supporting the root of the abbreviation currently cited in our article, but seems to contradict the date. It's theoretically possible to ignore the explicit wording used in the quote (ここで初めて○○が使われた) and interpret it as meaning that the official name change happened in 1976 by using an abbreviation that had been introduced in 1971, but that's not what the source says -- I was originally going to say it might be an idea to replace 新明解ナム語辞典 with this source (title?), but if it contradicts the other information in the sentence that can't be used.
Are you okay with Kotaku being the source for Namco being a contraction of Nakamura Manufacturing Company?(I'm assuming that only your final sentence is directed at Red Phoenix specifically and not me or "the room".) As I said above, no, but I'm willing to agree to disagree if the consensus among other editors is that Kotaku is reliable for this kind of information.
I don’t see a citogenesis problem hereMy view is that citogenesis is always a problem with pop culture topics (like video games) that touch on slightly less pop-culture-y topics (like the pre-1980 corporate history of any Japanese company) and we need to be super-skeptical of sources like Kotaku in such circumstances. Even in cases like this, where I believe you that the "NAkamura Manufacturing COmpany → Namco" story predates Wikipedia, it may well be the case that prior to Wikipedia there was an equally viable "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing COmpany → Namco" story that has since been suppressed as a result of English-language pop culture sources copying Wikipedia, which may not technically be citogenesis (which implies a completely made up statement that subsequently spread to other sources) but it's pretty close. Personally, I would prefer if the source you quoted above replaced the Kotaku one, but as long as I know that such a source exists (as I now do) and others are happy with the Kotaku citation, it's not something I see as worth fighting over. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 01:08, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Okay, so I'm very sorry it took me a while to make it here, but that's just the way IRL has been treating me lately. Anyway, Indrian, here's what I would tell you: normally, I'd say yes. According to WP:VG/S, Kotaku is considered a reliable source for all news articles after 2010, though this isn't exactly "news". They do tend to do well with retrospectives, however, and I've used them with some caution before. That being said, let me poke another hole in this one. In doing some searching on "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company", I didn't find that, but I did find several occurrences of "Nakamura Amusement Machine Manufacturing Company". And here it is again in the Wall Street Journal, which is listed at WP:RSP, and at Gamasutra. There are actually many more I'm finding, and they're all tied to obituaries of Nakamura. At least one contradicts Kotaku by saying the initialism happened after a 1977 rename, whereas Kotaku claims 1971. As it stands, I'm trying to find a more period-based source that might help us out, but I think there's enough here to poke a hole in this particular claim to this particular source given that we have disagreement in other, similar sources also considered reliable. Red Phoenix talk 03:01, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't doubt that the former 中村製作所 referred to itself variously as A, B, C, etc.) without shedding any light on the origin of the abbreviation, and the latter actually just clouds the dating issue even further by showing that as of 2003 Namco's English website said that the "[u]se of [the] Namco brand name [began]" in 1972 (given the preponderance of other sources, I suspect this is either a typo or a factual error). I don't think we're going to solve the mystery with the resources we have at present, so why can't we just do what Red Phoenix suggested above and say either that different sources give different etymologies (and cite at least one source for each, without necessarily listing them in-line) or that the name "Namco" was originally a brand-name based on an abbreviation of the company's name (without actually stating what said company's name is)? I didn't think it would be an issue so I didn't mention it up above, but is the problem that the latter solution would lead readers to assume that the correct origin was "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" because said name is cited elsewhere in the article? I don't see that as an issue, and I seem to be the one who's most sceptical of that origin, so I don't see why anyone else would see it as important. Anyway:
there is as yet no evidence Namco itself actually used in its dealings in the English-speaking worldThis is a little problematic, as it depends on what you consider to constitute "the English-speaking world" -- English has been a de facto official language of Japan since before Nakamura Seisakusho was founded, and while even today very few Japanese companies are careful to maintain uniformity in their English branding, it goes without saying that some form of English branding could have been in use even within Japan, let alone in the company's dealings with other parts of Asia where English is used as a lingua franca, even if such would not have appeared in publicly available materials in those countries at the time or now. Even if you reject Niconico News as a source and take "Nakamura Amusement Machine Company" to be either a hoax or an error, there are still three options, all attributable to reliable third-party sources, one of which (Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company) is attributable to a recent first-party source but possibly contradicted by the fact that there are a larger number of old sources that refer to the company (but not the origin of the brand name) as "Nakamura Manufacturing Company". I would think it qualifies as OR to take a bunch of sources that all refer to the company as "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" and claim (in the article space) that this is the origin of the brand name "Namco", especially when multiple reliable sources explicitly say otherwise, and I really don't see why it's still an issue worth arguing over: we should just remove the potentially problematic part of the sentence and change the citations (or insert a WP:COMMENT) so no one misinterprets it in the future. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 05:59, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Lead:
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General comments:
If you have a moment to spare, I also have a FAC that could use a review from someone less familiar with the topic. Thanks. Parsecboy ( talk) 00:29, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
While I've come late to this FAC, it does not take away the fact that it is well-written, comprehensive and impeccably sourced. I can't pick anything out which hasn't already been addressed, other than the fact that it is undoubtedly an exemplary article which faithfully represents all the facets of an influential video game company. Well done to Namcokid for his fastidious efforts, and Indian for taking the reins. ♦ jaguar 22:13, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
I could nitpick the prose, but this article already far exceeds the standards of a WP:FA. The research is excellent, and it is very thorough. Perhaps too thorough, if there was such a thing, but it never goes too deep into a tangent. Great work to Indrian for keeping this one going. Shooterwalker ( talk) 21:30, 18 July 2021 (UTC)