The Kirby video game series is a franchise of platform games and other genres (including puzzle and racing games) published and produced by Nintendo. The games have been developed by Japan-based HAL Laboratory, a Nintendo second-party developer. All Kirby video games have been developed exclusively for Nintendo video game consoles and handhelds dating from the Nintendo Entertainment System to the current generation of video game consoles. The series debuted in Japan on April 27, 1992 with Hoshi no Kirby (星のカービィ? Hoshi no Kābī, lit. "Kirby of the Stars"), which later was released in the North American and PAL regions on August 1992 as Kirby's Dream Land.
The series revolves around Kirby, the series' protagonist, and his adventures in the fictional world of Pop Star. A common gameplay element is Kirby's ability to copy enemy skills, allowing him to use them to progress through levels. This and other changes in gameplay from traditional platform games distinguish the series from other entries in the genre. Currently, the series contains twenty games. A one-hundred episode anime series based on the video games, Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, was created in Japan and formerly distributed by 4Kids TV in North America. A special 101st episode was created for the now retired Nintendo Video service, and was not in the anime style of the original 100 episodes. The Kirby series is among the best-selling video game franchises with over twenty million games sold worldwide. The franchise was conceived by Masahiro Sakurai as a game series for beginners, for which he partially attributes the series' success.