Namco was founded by Masaya Nakamura as Nakamura Seisakusho[c] on June 1, 1955, beginning as a producer of coin-operated amusement rides for Japanese department store roof gardens, seeing success with making children's rides for the Mitsukoshi chain. Renamed Nakamura Manufacturing in 1959, the company purchased the struggling Japanese division of Atari from Nolan Bushnell in 1974 and began releasing their games in Japan, where they quickly became one of the leading game companies in Asia. The acquisition inspired Namco to produce their own video games in-house, beginning with Gee Bee in 1978. Namco released their first major hit Galaxian a year later, followed by Pac-Man in 1980 — the latter has since become the most successful arcade game of all time and one of the highest-grossing video games of all time.
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