NEC started as Nippon Electric Company on July 17, 1899 in Tokyo—the first Japanese joint-stock firm with foreign capital. Kunihiko Iwadare and Takeshiro Maeda had set up a partnership the year before on Miyoshi plant grounds; Western Electric came in through Walter Tenney Carleton. The early business was telephones and switches for Japan’s growing subscriber network.
After the war NEC moved into transistors, computers, and satellite gear. It coined “C&C”—computers and communications as one business. The PC-8800 arrived in 1981 and the PC-9800 in 1982. For years the PC-98 held about 80% of Japan’s personal-computer market and became the machine Japanese offices and doujin games assumed you owned.
Games were a side door that still mattered. In 1987 NEC licensed Hudson Soft technology for the PC Engine, sold in North America from 1989 as the TurboGrafx-16. The CD-ROM² add-on made it the first console family on compact disc. The Japan-only PC-FX (1994–1998) was the last NEC-branded box. The same company sold chips outward: a VR4300 into the Nintendo 64, a V810 into the Virtual Boy, PowerVR-class graphics into the Dreamcast, and a V30 MZ into Bandai’s WonderSwan.
NEC changed its English name to NEC Corporation in 1983. In the 2000s it left most PC and memory manufacturing, spinning PCs toward Lenovo and semiconductors toward Renesas and Elpida. It remains a Sumitomo-group IT and network conglomerate in the NEC Supertower, Minato, Tokyo. The name on a HuCard still means the Japanese computer giant that once tried to own the living room too.
NEC Corporate Snapshot
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Founded | July 17, 1899 (Tokyo; as Nippon Electric Company) |
| Founders | Kunihiko Iwadare, Takeshiro Maeda; Western Electric partnership |
| Headquarters | NEC Supertower, Minato, Tokyo |
| Signature platforms | PC-88 / PC-98; PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16; PC-FX |
| Other game silicon | Nintendo 64 VR4300; Virtual Boy V810; Dreamcast graphics; WonderSwan V30 MZ |
| Group | Sumitomo Group |
| Current status | Public IT, network, and defense contractor; PCs and most chips spun off |