World Stadium


World Stadium, is a series of baseball arcade games that were released by Namco in the late 1980s and 1990s exclusively in Japan; they were inspired by the 1986 Famicom game Pro Yakyū Family Stadium, and its sequel game, Pro Yakyū Family Stadium '87.

Namco System 1 era (1988–90)

The first three titles in the series, , , and , ran upon Namco System 1 hardware, and featured twelve teams from the "Urban League", and "Country League" ; they also featured three stadiums for matches to take place in. The first two of these stadiums' scoreboards had clocks which started at 6:00 and advanced as the matches progressed, and the third stadium's scoreboard also featured the logo of Namco's United States distributor of that time period - Atari Games.

Namco System 2 era (1991–93)

The next four titles in the series, , , , and, ran on Namco System 2 hardware; the first of these featured sixteen teams, but the other three featured the twelve teams from the Japanese Central and Pacific Baseball Leagues. They also featured four stadiums for matches to take place in - again, the first three stadiums' scoreboards had clocks upon them, but they were broken. SWS '92 G also introduced a "FAVOR" setting in its options menu.

Namco NB-1 era (1993–97)

The next arcade baseball game Namco released was Great Sluggers: New World Stadium in 1993. It was the first to run on Namco NB-1 hardware, and featured the 12 teams from Nippon Professional Baseball. A sequel, Great Sluggers '94, featured American teams. The next three titles in the series,,, and and featured the twelve real-life teams from the three previous games; they also featured six stadiums for their matches to take place in. SWS '96 also introduced five "optional ball clubs" - the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties and USA, while the Urban Stadium was merely the Kōshien Stadium from the previous games renamed.

Namco System 12 era (1998–2001)

The last four titles in the series,,,, and, ran on Namco System 12 hardware, and featured eighteen teams. It also featured twelve stadiums for its matches to take place in. The Namco All-Stars and Nikotama Gals feature twenty-three of Namco's most famous characters; however, the pitchers of the former team are merely named after five others.