Capcom Sports Club

1979–1984: Founding and arcade games Capcom's predecessor, I.R.M. Corporation, was founded on May 30, 1979 by Kenzo Tsujimoto , who was still president of Irem Corporation when he founded I.R.M. He worked at both companies at the same time until leaving Irem in 1983. The original companies that spawned Capcom's Japan branch were I.R.M. and its subsidiary Japan Capsule Computers Co., Ltd., both of which were devoted to the manufacture and distribution of electronic game machines. The two companies underwent a name change to Sanbi Co., Ltd. in September 1981. On June 11, 1983, Tsujimoto established Capcom Co., Ltd. to take over the internal sales department. In January 1989, Capcom Co., Ltd. merged with Sanbi Co., Ltd., resulting in the current Japan branch. The name Capcom is a clipped compound of " Cap sule Com puters", a term coined by the company for the arcade machines it solely manufactured in its early years, designed to set themselves apart from personal computers that were becoming widespread. "Capsule" alludes to how Capcom likened its game software to "a capsule packed to the brim with gaming fun", and to the company's desire to protect its intellectual property with a hard outer shell, preventing illegal copies and inferior imitations. Capcom's first product was the medal game Little League (July 1983) followed by Fever Chance (Oct 1983) . In December 1983, the video arcade Acty 24 was opened under the direct management of Capcom. It released its first arcade video game , Vulgus (May 1984). Starting with the arcade hit 1942 (1984), they began designing games with international markets in mind. The successful 1985 arcade games Commando and Ghosts 'n Goblins have been credited as the products "that shot [Capcom] to 8-bit silicon stardom" in the mid-1980s. Starting with Commando (late 1985), Capcom began licensing their arcade games for release on home computers , notably to British software houses Elite Systems and U.S. Gold in the late 1980s.