GEM Impact is an audio production studio founded by game composer and saxophonist Norihiko Hibino in 2005. It is located in Tokyo, Japan, and employs a number of composers, producers, and artists. Hibino’s fluency in English has allowed him to take the GEM Impact brand to a worldwide platform, which is the basis for the studio’s motto: “From Japan to worldwide.”
The studio employs a number of composers, including Norihiko Hibino himself, Takahiro Izutani, Yoshitaka Suzuki, and Takahide Ayuzawa. They have often made use of the talents of artist Uetake MacARTHUR for their graphical needs.
While Norihiko Hibino is well known for his contributions to the Metal Gear Solid series, many were left wondering what role GEM Impact had on the score for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, as their contributions were not publicized. Hibino later revealed via an interview with Original Sound Version that GEM Impact in fact provided 90 minutes of music for the cinematic sequences in the game.
GEM Impact operates alongside GEM Factory, an in-house record label that has released two albums including The Outer Rim and the Ninja Blade Original Soundtrack. Vanilla Mood, a night club in Japan, was also operated under GEM Impact, but closed at the end of 2008.
On September 2, 2008, FromSoftware announced the ninja action title, Ninja Blade, and named Norihiko Hibino and GEM Impact as the composers for the title. The team has already completed the music for the title, totaling close to three hours of original music. Hibino noted in a preview article at Original Sound Version that he believes this project represents the studio's greatest achievement to date, and it is a landmark for the studio. On February 10, 2009, it was announced that the group would work alongside Platinum Games sound director Masami Ueda and composer Hiroshi Yamaguchi on the company's action title Bayonetta.
Famous quotes containing the words gem and/or impact:
“Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood? A smile has dried my tears.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)