Varie

Founded December 1986 · Japan

Varie Corporation (株式会社バリエ) was a Japanese publisher and developer best remembered for its games endorsed/licensed by F1 racer Satoru Nakajima and Shin Nihon Pro Wrestling. Later games prominently featured female characters designed by graphic artist Minoru Okamoto (岡本稔). Varie also marketed a line of handheld LCD games based on Namco properties. Varie's early Famicom and Game Boy titles were technically published by Kaken Corporation (Kagaku Giken Kabushiki Kaisha [科学技研株式会社], later Kabushiki Kaisha Kaken [株式会社科研]), a company that previously made electronic games for and was later acquired by Bandai. Varie and Kaken's relationship beyond that is unknown. (Note that the one game published by Kaken under its own name, Exciting Rally for the Famicom, has a "VRE" product code.) The publisher Unipacc may have been connected to Varie. The one game it published, XDR for the Mega Drive, has the same UPC prefix as Varie games and has Varie staff listed in the credits. Also, two presumed Varie staffers (Hideki Nakajima and Yoshihiko Tsuda) are the respondents in this Unipacc interview. In 1997, Varie and sister publishing company Sonnet Computer Entertainment were merged into Layup. It is presumed they were previously acquired by Layup, but that is not reported anywhere.