Sora Ltd. (有限会社ソラ yūgen kaisha sora) is a Japanese video game developer founded by former HAL Laboratory employee Masahiro Sakurai. It was formed in the years following Sakurai's resignation from his position at HAL Laboratory.
Sora was built as an agency that would contract Sakurai as a freelance video game designer to different companies. Masahiro Sakurai's first project under Sora was designing Meteos with Q Entertainment.
Nintendo Co., Ltd's Satoru Iwata hired Sakurai, a long-time friend and former employee, to work on Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Development was supported by various other studios, including Game Arts and Monolith Soft, the latter now a first-party developer for Nintendo.
On 18 February 2009, following the success of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo announced the formation of Project Sora, a subsidiary that will develop a new title to be directed by Sakurai. The development group is located in Tokyo's Idabashi area. Project Sora was officially formed on 22 January with capital of 200 million yen, of which 72% was provided by Nintendo and the remainder by Sora Ltd. and other parties. Sakurai will serve as the company's president. The studio is beginning development with a staff of 30 (most of whom were recruits Nintendo hired for the development of Super Smash Bros. Brawl), with new recruitment constantly ongoing for a bigger development staff. Sora Ltd. is currently developing Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS [2]
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