Spectrum HoloByte
| File:Spectrum holobyte.jpeg | |
| Public (defunct) | |
| Industry | Video game industry |
| Fate | Acquired by Hasbro Interactive |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Defunct | 1998 |
| Headquarters | Alameda, California, United States |
|
Key people
|
Gilman Louie |
| Products | Video games |
Spectrum Holobyte, Inc. (stylized and commonly referred to as Spectrum HoloByte) was a video game developer and publisher. The company, founded in 1983, was most famous for its simulation games, notably the Falcon series of flight simulators and Vette! (1989) driving simulator. Spectrum HoloByte was founded in Boulder, Colorado but subsequently moved to Alameda, California.[citation needed]
Spectrum HoloByte published games for many platforms, including home computers of the 1980s and early 1990s, IBM PC compatibles, and some video game consoles.[citation needed]
The company published Solitaire Royale (1987), the first computer card solitaire program.[citation needed] They were the first to bring Tetris to gamers outside the Soviet Union and Sokoban to gamers outside Japan. It was also the distributor for Domark games before Domark set up its own US operations in San Mateo, California.[citation needed]
In 1992 Spectrum HoloByte received an investment from Kleiner Perkins, which let the company repurchase shares formerly owned by Robert Maxwell's companies, ending its ties to their bankruptcies.[1] In December 1993, Spectrum HoloByte merged with MicroProse to form MicroProse Inc.[2] For the following years, games from both companies were published under their respective brands, but in 1996 all titles were consolidated under the MicroProse brand.[citation needed]
Hasbro Interactive acquired the merged company in 1998, and what had been Spectrum HoloByte ceased to exist when the development studio in Alameda was closed in 1999.[3] Hasbro subsequently[when?] sold all the assets of the various Hasbro Interactive studios to Infogrames, including the Atari brand itself.[citation needed]
The chairman of Spectrum HoloByte, Gilman Louie, also founded Nexa Corporation, a developer of entertainment software, which went on to merge with Spectrum HoloByte prior to the company's move from Colorado to California.
Games
References
External links
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with unsourced statements from May 2014
- Articles with unsourced statements from April 2016
- Vague or ambiguous time from May 2014
- Defunct video game companies
- Defunct software companies of the United States
- Video game companies of the United States
- Video game companies established in 1983
- Companies disestablished in 1999
- Video game development companies
