HAL Laboratory, Inc.,[b] formerly shortened as HALKEN, is a Japanese video game developer founded on February 21, 1980, in Chiyoda, Tokyo by Mitsuhiro Ikeda.

Its logo, Inutamago,[c] which depicts a dog incubating eggs, is meant to represent "an unexpected bond [...] one that brings the birth of something new."

[7] However, in a 2012 Iwata Asks interview, he said the company was named HAL because "each letter put [them] one step ahead of IBM.

HAL assisted in the development of first-party Famicom games such as Pinball and Golf, while also creating original titles such as F1 Race.

[7] In the west, some titles were published under HAL America Inc. (HAI), a North American subsidiary of the company led by Yash Terakura and based in Beaverton, Oregon, USA.