We, like many other Nintendo fans out there, were under the pretense that HAL Laboratory - the company responsible for our lovable pink hero Kirby and the Super Smash Bros. series - was named after the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL 9000. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata even stated that the name was "very cool" during his his keynote speech at the 2005 Game Developers Conference.
However, Iwata had been keeping the real reason behind the name a secret, until revealing it during a recent Iwata Asks discussion about Zombi U. During the interview, Yves Guillemot of Ubisoft explained the meaning behind Ubisoft was derived from the word 'Ubiquity' meaning 'exists everywhere'.
No doubt feeling he should reciprocate some equally enlightening news, Iwata responded with this bombshell:
We were exactly the same in that sense. Ubisoft was named after Ubiquity because you wanted to be everywhere in the world and HAL was named as such because each letter put us one step ahead of IBM! (Laughs)
[source nintendo-gamer.net, via nintendo.co.uk]
Comments 46
Ooooh, seriously? Haha, that's so random.
Thats hilarious.
That's actually a lot more clever.
I knew this already
That's one of the neatest pieces of game trivia I've ever heard.
Neat haha. Although I liked to hear what is up with the HAL logo?? I looks like a dog in a nest with eggs or something lol
Certainly is random!
I think I guessed this, but in my mind I was thinking that it really stood forsomething, and that idea was stupid.
That is brilliant. What a clever idea.
LOL, nice work HAL. Great reason to name a company.
He's cleaned up nicely since his HAL days.
@steamhare
true say he got better with age or maybe the photo didnt do him justice
That is so weird and awesome it has to be true. XD
It's interesting because Arthur C. Clarke was often accused of naming HAL 9000 using this one letter shift in order to suggest that IBM is a villain, but he always denied it. It was embarrassing to him (and Kubrick) because IBM had actually helped them during the making of 2001.
So, this seems to show that not only was HAL not named after HAL 9000, but it DID use the technique Arthur C. Clark was accused of... I wonder if they did it BECAUSE of those accusations though. So maybe HAL IS indirectly named after HAL 9000 after all. Or not.
What? That's hilarious! xD
The best part about this article is the photo of a young Satoru Iwata before he could boss around a teenage Masahiro Sakurai.
@Void You mean it's HALarious
Wow, thats actually really clever, certainly not what I was expecting. More so if @aaronsullivan is right about it being based off a piece of trivia.
Real clever @HarmoKnight.
I just watched 2001 yesterday! And yeah, I always sort of assumed it was either named after HAL 9000 or it was some boring acronym like "Hamsters And Lungfish", but being one step ahead of IBM is way more interesting.
That was very clever. I never knew!
Very clever!! One of the best gaming trivia I've heard in a long time.
Lol very clever indeed.
It's the same reason HAL was named in 2001: A Space Oddyssey
Cool, I guess a company named GZK is in the works now.
That. Is. AWESOME!
That's clever, but not clever of Nintendo! It's the SAME reason why Arthur C. Clark named the computer HAL in "2001: A Space Oddisey"! ;D
That' funny.
@ChunkyDroid #26
Not really, HAL was a substitute for IBM. Arthur C. Clarke was, according to speculation, warning people about the danger of giving computers too much power.
i knew it sounded familiar!
wait a minute... HAL 9000 tried to kill all the astronauts... what if nintendo...
That make me laugh.
Pretty cool little bit of trivia there
Ha ha ha ha ha, thats pretty funny
2001 is such a weird movie. I've got the novel by Arthur C Clarke but never induldged.
Hahahaha! XD "Oh Mr. Iwata...so funny & random!" XD
I think he just means that as a clever response, not so much the literal reason, although it would be interesting if that was legitimately the real reason.
It's NOT the same reason HAL 9000 is so named. That's a myth — look it up — and it was possibly well known when HAL chose it's name. Not sure on that last part, though. Maybe they were like, "Hey, he didn't do it for that reason, but we can!"
I guess we are Dave in that HAL won't let us play the Mother Games.
@bezerker99 Definitely read the book. I did before watching the movie for essentially the first time (way too long ago for the actual first), and it helped make sense of the movie. Actually, I was aggravated with the movie in parts, because it didn't really convey what was happening. Like pretty much the whole end of the movie.
As far as the trivia, that is really neat!
So that's where the names Ubisoft and HAL came from! Cool information! So HAL felt they where in competition with IBM! Crazy!
@Happy_Mask love what you did there lol perfect
@Tsuchiya Really? Where did you hear about it?
Not to be "that guy" but isn't this widely known as a pun since the late 1960s when 2001: A Space Oddyssey was released? Whether or not it's true that Arthur C. Clarke intentionally named HAL so closely to IBM as a criticism I didn't think this was such a "bombshell" of a reveal for Iwata to suggest this as it's always been widely and popularly discussed with any reference to HAL (the computer) for THE PAST 40 YEARS. I find it even more surprising that the article suggests it is a surprise given that it acknowledges that the common theory was that HAL Labs was named after the HAL 9000 computer from the movie in the first place (which it clearly was, even with the IBM pun and all).
Cool. Always nice to learn background info for a great studio like Hal Labs.
Who believes this? If they admitted to being named after it, there'd be copyright issues. How many game studios are called "laboratory", which is exactly the company from the movie? Since the IBM angle is the reason for the HAL 9000 name, this is Iwata admitting it without admitting it.
(Yes, this post is 10 years later. I was talking about 2001 to a Nintendo fan this week and so was reminded of this.)
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