Talk:Bandai Namco Group

I created this article for the purpose of covering the topic of the conglomerate Bandai Namco Group and the existing article, Namco Bandai Holdings, should only focus on the holding company itself, not the corporate group for which it acts as a holding company. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 22:08, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying, and I do agree. In fact, I see that you've already made a significant change to Namco Bandai Holdings, removing the "also known as ..." which was one of my concerns about having two articles. I think that article still needs some work, which perhaps, with your greater knowledge, you could look at when time permits -- as an outsider, I don't really get a clear picture of the group structure, which is the first thing I'd expect from an article on the holding company.

In the meantime, I'm removing my csd tag to give you the "breathing space" you need. Regards. Jimmy Pitt talk 09:29, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I will try to figure out what the best way to present the group structure in the article is. The problem is that it is a really big corporate group. The Toys and Hobby SBU (Strategic Business Unit) comprises over 15 subsidiaries and the Content SBU contains over 20 subsidiaries and then there are a few additional subsidiaries in other SBU. Additionally some subsidiaries like Bandai Co., Ltd. have many regional subsidiaries like Bandai America Inc., Bandai S.A., Bandai UK Ltd. etc. I don't know if it is really a good idea to list them all in the article, but this would perhaps be necessary to get an overview over the whole group structure. I will think about how this information can be presented in this article in an informative and overseeable way. Perhaps only the SBUs should be mentioned and a brief summary of the businesses each of it is active in rather than listing every single subsidiary. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 21:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

A keiretsu ?

Does anybody know if Bandai Namco Group counts as a keiretsu? If this is the case I will add the appropriate links / categories to the article, but I'm not very familiar with what japanese conglomerates count as keiretsu and which do not. Perhaps all corporate groups / conglomerates originating in Japan are keiretsu? Help on this is welcome. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

From what Wikipedia says it seems for a conglomerate to qualify as a keiretsu, it must contain a large financial company or bank. As far as I know none of the major japanese banks (Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho, Sumitomo Mitsui, Resona) belong to Bandai Namco Group, thus it doesn't seem to be a keiretsu. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Cause for split

I'm not at all clear on what distinction is being made between the holding company and the "corporate group for which it acts". There may be an argument that "Bandai Namco Group" is the more significant topic than the legal entity that represents them, but they are meaningfully the same thing, and I don't see a reason to split the article. As is, the original article is full of crufty details about its internal organization. We don't need more of that, we need more meaningful coverage of what the company is and does. I don't have a strong preference either way for what the article is called, but I'd like to see a consensus form on this before continuing further with a split. Ham Pastrami (talk) 05:38, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I tried to introduce exactly that, a "meaningful coverage of what the company is and does" and this in the accurate place. The group and the holding company are definitely not the same thing. Namco Bandai Holdings, Inc. is a legal entity, wheras Bandai Namco Group is not. Bandai Namco Group is a formal alliance (or whatever you want to call it, I don't know a better word for it) of a number of legal entities. As such, the two are not actually the same thing and should not share the same article. And well you say we don't need an article about the group? Then we wouldn't also need the following articles: Samsung Group, Aju Group, CJ Group, Daelim Group, Sumitomo Group, DKB Group, Fujisankei Communications Group, Fuyo Group, Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group etc. They also cover groups of companies like this article does. Thus this "split" was the only decision that makes sense, because having Namco Bandai Holdings Inc. and Bandai Namco Group covered in the same article is simply inaccurate since they are two totally different things (the first is a company and the second is a conglomerate). Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 08:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

The other groups you mentioned are not using the same analogy. Samsung Group is the singular article that represents the entire conglomerate, which is what both the NBHD and this article do, and why this is redundant. The other Samsung-related articles are for the individual companies, which we also have for Namco, Namco Bandai Games, etc. So yes, we do not need a "Samsung Holdings Inc." article if we already have the Samsung Group article. One is a legal entity and the other is not, but they represent the same people, the same businesses, basically everything except legal status. That does not make them anything close to "totally different" nor does it warrant a separate article. Ham Pastrami (talk) 19:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

You are right in the point that we do not need a Samsung Holdings article, because this legal entity simply doesn't exist. You probably miss the point that Samsung Group and Bandai Namco Group are structured in totally different ways. Samsung Group is simply a loose group of companies that share the same brand, but that otherwise do not have a central connection like Bandai Namco Group has. The accurate article for Bandai Namco can only be the article Bandai Namco Group, like the article Samsung Group is for Samsung and recognizing that both are corporate groups. The important point here is that Bandai Namco has a type of company in their group that Samsung does not have, the central holding company Namco Bandai Holdings. This is but one of the many companies of Bandai Namco Group, whose business is to manage the whole group. Samsung Group does not have such a Management company into which the overall group management has been outsourced. This does simply mean that Samsung Group lacks a type of company that Bandai Namco Group has. The consequence is that we do not need an article Samsung Holdings, but Bandai Namco Group does have such a holding company. That does not however make the holding company the equivalent to the Samsung Group conglomerate, the equivalent to this is the conglomerate Bandai Namco Group. Bandai Namco Group simply has one additional company (Namco Bandai Holdings, Inc.), to which no equivalent exists in Samsung Group. I hope this makes clear that we need two seperate articles for the group and the holding company. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 00:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I've thought about the organisation of the articles Bandai Namco Group and Namco Bandai Holdings and after exhaustive internet search I've found that there is very little information about Bandai Namco Group available in any sources and that most sources seem to confuse the two. I think it will perhaps be impossible to expand the group article any further. Thus I think the two articles should be merged. It would perhaps be the best thing to keep the article Bandai Namco Group and merge info from Namco Bandai Holdings into it. I think it makes more sense to have a section about the holding company in an article about Bandai Namco Group than the other way round. After all the group is the more general thing and the holding company is only one of the many companies of that group, like Bandai Co., Namco Ltd., Namco Bandai Games Inc., Bandai Visual Co. Ltd. etc. So I oppose to merge Bandai Namco Group into Namco Bandai Holdings, but instead support merging Namco Bandai Holdings into Bandai Namco Group. The Namco Bandai Holdings article is in a much poorer shape than the Bandai Namco Group article anyway, thus it should work well this way. Thoughts, opinions, comments? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 19:22, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I hate to say I told you so, but I guess I just did. I never got around to replying to your previous argument about needing 2 articles but it seems I won't need to since you seem to agree now that there is no consequential difference between the two in terms of an encyclopedia article. As things stand now, your article consists of an introductory paragraph and then a laundry list of subsidiary companies. The original article at least has some contextual information. So again I'd have to disagree with your proposal, this time to usurp the original article with your own preferred name/POV. I'd agree with a redirect/merge, and feel free to add whatever you think needs to be kept to the original article. If you want to rename the original article, which as I suspected was the whole point of this exercise, you should have just posted a proposal to rename it instead of trying to undermine its legitimacy. Ham Pastrami (talk) 03:25, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I apologize for going the way I did. You are right I should have done this in another way and perhaps first put something on the talk page before creating the group article and should have waited for a consensus. I will try to take this as an excercise to handle things differently in the future. The only thing left for me to say is it wasn't my intention to have things the way I want them no matter of the consequences. I tried to give these articles a shape that would be an improvement over their previous state. My first thought was it would be best to have two seperate articles, one for the group and one for the holding company. I only realized it would perhaps be sufficient to have only one article after (maybe too fast) creating the Bandai Namco Group article, because I now think it will be very hard to give the holding company article a lot of content. Is a holding company really that important / notable? Will there be much content about the holding company itself and not the whole group? Nevertheless I still think if we want to have only one article (either one about Bandai Namco Group ore one about Namco Bandai Holdings) it would be more accurate to have an article Bandai Namco Group with a section about the holding company containing a description of that company than the other way round, having an article about the holding company containing a section about the group. This is because I thing the group is a more general thing than the holding company (the group "contains" the holding company; from the perspective of the holding company, this company is part of the larger group). Thus I think it makes more sense to have an article about the more general thing with a section on the more special thing, than having a more specialized article about the holding company with a section about the more general group of companies it belongs to. If I am the only one who sees it this way, then I can do nothing more than accept it and let it be the way it is. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:08, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposed for deletion

Regarding previous discussions and realizing that the creation of this article by me was a mistake as well as my false opinion of this articles importance compared to the holding company article, I nominated this article for deletion as keeping it would lead to duplication of content from Namco Bandai Holdings. I moved all content from here that might be relevant to the Namco Bandai Holdings article there. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 12:04, 31 October 2010 (UTC)