ジービー：Namcoの初期ビデオゲームとブロック崩しの融合

1978 video game

Gee Bee (ジービー, Jī Bī) is a block breaker/video pinball hybrid arcade game developed and published by Namco in 1978. The player controls a set of paddles with a rotary knob, with the objective being to score as many points as possible by deflecting a ball against bricks, pop bumpers and other objects in the playfield. It was developed by Toru Iwatani, known as the creator of Pac Man and Pole Position. Outside Japan, it was published by Gremlin Industries. Gee Bee was the first video game to be designed in house by Namco – prior to this, the company had manufactured arcade electro mechanical games (such as Periscope and F 1) and published a number of video games by Atari, Inc. (notably Breakout) in Japan. Iwatani originally wanted to produce pinball machines for the company, but higher ups at Namco disapproved of the idea. As a compromise, Iwatani instead made a video game with pinball elements, combined with mechanics established in Breakout. Gee Bee was the eighth highest grossing arcade video game of 1978 in Japan, and sold 10,000 units worldwide. However, it was not as big of a success as hoped, but it would nevertheless help establish Namco's presence in the video game industry. Two sequels were produced in 1979, Bomb Bee and Cutie Q.

Gee Bee is a block breaker arcade game intermixed with elements of a pinball table. The player uses a rotary dial to control a set of paddles on screen, the objective being to score as many points as possible by deflecting a ball towards objects placed on the board – these include Breakout like brick formations, pop bumpers that award ten points each when hit, and spinners that slow down the ball. Having the ball touch the "NAMCO" rollover symbols (replaced by the Gremlin logo in the North American version) causes them to light up and having all of them lit up increases the score multiplier. The company began their insertion into game development in July 1976, when Shigeichi Ishimura, a Namco electro mechanical game designer, proposed the idea of creating a video arcade game utilizing a CPU, with information accumulated from his work on electro mechanical games. Namco approved of the idea and purchased a surplus amount of PDA 08 microcomputers from NEC, employees being assigned to study the system's potential to create video games. Before the arrival of Iwatani, Namco was publishing Atari arcade games in Japan, following their acquisition of Atari Japan a few years prior. Gee Bee was first released in Japan in October 1978.

The game is reported to have sold nearly 10,000 units, which was a good sales figure for its time, but Gee Bee was not as successful as Namco hoped it would be, due to coin drop earnings per unit falling below expectations and due to competition from Taito's Space Invaders. Nevertheless, Gee Bee was the eighth highest earning arcade video game of 1978 in Japan, and helped establish Namco as a prime video game developer in Japan, leading to them producing their own arcade games alongside publishing those from other companies. while the December 30 issue stated that it had a "good looking cabinet and graphics". In a retrospective, Earn Green of Allgame noted the game's importance for Namco, being Toru Iwatani's first video game for the company. Retro Gamer listed Gee Bee as one of the best Breakout clones for its notability as Namco's first internally designed video game. Cutie Q is notable for featuring "cute" characters, which would become a key inspiration for character design in Iwatani's next work, Pac Man, released a year later. Both Bomb Bee and Cutie Q were ported to the PlayStation in 1996 in the Japanese version of Namco Museum Vol. 2; however, international versions replaced both games with Super Pac Man. Cutie Q was also ported over to the Wii as part of Namco Museum Remix in 2007 and its 2010 update Namco Museum Megamix.