Cing


 * This article is about the Japanese video game developer. For the radio station in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, see CING-FM.

Cing, Inc. (株式会社シング) is an independent video game developer based out of Fukuoka, Japan. The company, a small development house employing only 29 people, was founded in April 1999, and was run by Takuya Miyagawa, who served as President and CEO. Miyagawa also acted as producer on all of Cing's titles. The company filed for bankruptcy on March 1, 2010.

Since releasing a PS2 title in 2003 and a handful of mobile titles in 2004, Cing had enjoyed a close working relationship with Nintendo. Two projects were created in cooperation with the publisher for their Nintendo DS handheld system, and a sequel to one of these was developed for Nintendo's home console, the Wii. Cing also partnered with Town Factory to bring about the critically acclaimed Little King's Story for the Wii.

History
Founded on April 2, 1999, Cing was created as a means of providing gamers with new and unique video game experiences. The studio's first project was providing the core production for Capcom's Glass Rose, an adventure title for Sony's PlayStation 2. Unfortunately, despite having Masahiro Matsuoka's likeness (from the popular Japanese pop group Tokio) for its main character, the title failed to prove successful at retail and was never localized in North America, but did see a European release. Following this, Cing went on to create five separate titles for mobile phones in Japan, including an adaptation of the popular farming simulation series, Harvest Moon.

In early 2005, Cing released the adventure title Another Code: Two Memories (Trace Memory) for the DS, which marked their first project produced with Nintendo. The game made extensive use of the various unique capabilities of the DS, and proved to be a fairly moderate success. The studio's next project, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, was another adventure title making specific use of the DS functionality, including holding the system sideways to play (similar to Nintendo's Brain Age titles).

On March 13, 2007, Cing announced their next-generation video game title for the Nintendo Wii, titled Little King's Story (Ousama Monogatari). This was a collaboration between MMV and TownFactory, two Japanese video game developers. The game has was released in Australia and Europe in April 2009, in North America on July 21, 2009, and in Japan on September 3, 2009. In November 2009, Cing announced Last Window: The Secret of Cape West, the sequel to Hotel Dusk: Room 215 for Nintendo DS. It was released on January 14, 2010 in Japan.

Cing filed for bankruptcy in Japan on March 1, 2010. The company was reportedly suffering from liabilities of 256 million yen (USD 2.9m/EUR 2.1m).

Nintendo DS

 * Another Code: Two Memories (Trace Memory) (Another Code: Futatsu no Kioku) (2005)
 * Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (Wish Room: Tenshi no Kioku) (2007)
 * Monster Farm DS (2007)
 * Monster Rancher DS (Monster Farm DS 2) (2008)
 * Again (2009)
 * Last Window: The Secret of Cape West (Last Window: Mayonaka no Yakusoku) (2010)

Wii

 * Little King's Story (2009)
 * Another Code: R – A Journey into Lost Memories (2009)

PlayStation 2

 * Glass Rose (Garasu no Bara) (2003)

Mobile Phones

 * Kisekaegokko (2003) (Japan Only)
 * Moetan Online (2003) (Japan Only)
 * Kawa no Nushitsuri (2003) (Japan Only)
 * Gakka wo Tsukuro (2004) (Japan Only)
 * Bokujo Monogatari: Mobile Life (2004) (Japan Only)