Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. is a Japanese multinational video game publisher owned by Bandai Namco Holdings. It was founded in 2006 as Namco Bandai Games Inc., following the 2005 merger of Namco and Bandai. Namco acquired Bandai's video game business division through a corporate split. In 2009, Bandai Namco Games absorbed Bandai Networks. It is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Development operations were spun off into a new company in 2012, Namco Bandai Studios (now called Bandai Namco Studios), to help create faster development time and tighter cohesion between development teams. Namco Bandai Games was renamed Bandai Namco Games in 2014 and again to Bandai Namco Entertainment a year later. Bandai Namco Entertainment owns several multi-million video game franchises, including Pac-Man, Tekken, Soulcalibur, Tales, Ace Combat, Taiko no Tatsujin, The Idolmaster, and Dark Souls. Pac-Man himself serves as the official mascot of the company. The company also owns the licenses to several Japanese media franchises, such as Shonen Jump, Gundam, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, Sword Art Online, and the Ultra Series. It is the core publishing and development area of the Bandai Namco Group's "Content Strategic Business Unit" (Content SBU), and the main video game branch of Bandai Namco Holdings.