Sora Ltd. (Japanese: 有限会社ソラ | Sora Company Limited) 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. Although it is considered a video game developer, it is merely used by Sakurai to conduct business with other companies, and therefore outsources development on its games to other developers. Its only employees are Sakurai and his wife, Michiko. Sora Ltd.'s first game was Meteos, a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS that Sakurai directed while Q Entertainment was the primary developer. Their next game was Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Like Meteos, Sakurai directed the project, but most of the development was handled by Game Arts and Monolith Soft. For a while, Sakurai ran Project Sora, a joint venture between Sora Ltd. and Nintendo, which was started in January 2009. An important distinction between Sora Ltd. and Project Sora is that the former is not officially affiliated with Nintendo; Project Sora allowed Sakurai to use Nintendo's resources for game development. It only developed Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS before officially closing on June 30, 2012. Sora Ltd.'s next game, Super Smash Bros. 4, co-developed by Bandai Namco, was released for the Nintendo 3DS under the name Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS in Japan on September 13, 2014, and on October 3, 2014, in North America and Europe, as well as releasing on the Wii U under the name Super Smash Bros. for Wii U on December 6, 2014, in Japan, on November 21, 2014, in North America, and on November 28, 2014, in Europe. The company's latest release, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which was co-developed with the same team at Bandai Namco, was released worldwide on December 7, 2018, for the Nintendo Switch.
