St.GIGA

St.GIGA
Founded	April 2, 1990[1]
Defunct	March 31, 2003[2]
First Super Mario game	Waiwai de Q Dai-1-wa
Final Super Mario game	Satella-Q Shin Q Omedetou Pikapika no Q Ninsei
Final president	Director Hiroshi Yokoi (deceased)

Satellite Digital Audio Broadcast Co., Ltd., better known and traded as St.GIGA, was a Japanese satellite radio company that was heavily involved in the Satellaview, an add-on for the Super Famicom. Prior to its involvement with Nintendo, St.GIGA was perhaps most known for its satellite radio station that played new age and ambient music to a cult fanbase.

In 1994, St.GIGA began struggling financially due to the Japanese Recession negatively affecting demand for its ambient music and satellite tuners, but Nintendo bought a 19.5% stake in its company as a way of "rescuing" it and to assist in restructuring.^[3] Officially announced on December 21, 1994, St.GIGA and Nintendo released the Satellaview in April 1995, and St.GIGA dropped much of its original content in order to maintain the service, providing downloads for users and more videogame and pop-culture oriented audio broadcasts.

In 1998, Nintendo and St.GIGA's relationship deteriorated after the latter refused to go forward with a debt-management plan orchestrated by Nintendo and had failed to apply for a government digital satellite broadcasting license by a deadline. Because of this, Nintendo ceased production of new content for the Satellaview in March 1999, though St.GIGA kept the service up for two more years with reruns of older games.^[4] Due to financial issues and a critical lack of third-party support, the company ultimately decided to discontinue the Satellaview and return to its original focus on music, with support and services for the peripheral ending on June 30, 2000. None of St.GIGA's work before or afterward was tied to video games.

St.GIGA still struggled with financial issues. Facing bankruptcy, it merged with WireBee in 2001 and was eventually renamed Club COSMO before its broadcasting license was sold to World Independent Networks Japan in addition to WireBee going bankrupt as well in 2003, and its assets have gone through several different hands. Attempts to rebroadcast its old content by World Independent Networks Japan starting in 2006 have been revoked by the Japanese Minister of Internal Affairs.^[5]

Names in other languages[edit]

References[edit]

St.GIGA coverage on other NIWA wikis:

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