Driller universe and helped bridge the connection between the Mr. Driller and Dig Dug franchises. Taizo Hori, the protagonist of the Dig Dug series, is a playable character in G and is revealed to be the father of Susumu and his older brother Ataru Hori. The PlayStation version was only moderately successful with around 10,000 being sold during launch week. Yoshizawa intended G to be the final game in the series, but Namco was approached by Nintendo to create a Mr. Driller game for the GameCube that took advantage of the console's GameCube – Game Boy Advance link cable peripheral. This resulted in the creation of Mr. Driller A for the Game Boy Advance and Mr. Driller Drill Land for the GameCube in 2002. A implemented a Tamagotchi-inspired virtual pet that could be transferred to Drill Land. Though Drill Land received the most acclaim out of any game in the series, its exclusivity to the GameCube made it a commercial failure. Namco became less interested in supporting the franchise as a result. Mr. Driller Drill Spirits, the second portable entry in the series, was released in 2004 for the Nintendo DS and reused many of Drill Lands game modes and assets, though condensed to meet the system's hardware limitations. Namco's North American division stripped most of its content in order for it to be ready in time for the launch of the DS in the United States, a move that garnered significant criticism from publications. Namco Bandai Games became the owner of the Mr. Driller intellectual property after Namco's 2005 merger with Bandai. Mr. Driller Online (2008) for the Xbox 360, Mr. Driller: Drill Till You Drop (2009) for DSiWare, and Mr. Driller W (2009) for WiiWare all recycle art assets and pre-established concepts from earlier games. Yoshizawa considered Drill Till You Drop to be the "culmination" of the series and likely the last one he would develop. By the early 2010s, Namco Bandai largely abandoned the property outside several mobile phone spin-offs. In 2020, Bandai Namco Entertainment began to remaster of Drill Land for the Nintendo Switch and PC as part of its Encore series of remasters. The decision to remaster the game was based on the success of the remake for Katamari Damacy (2004). Yoshizawa, who had left Bandai Namco in 2016, supervised the project. The remaster was released in 2020 worldwide, titled Mr. Driller Encore in Japan.