Artoon Co., Ltd. (株式会社アートゥーン Kabushiki-Gaisha Ātūn) was a Japanese

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

established in 1999. It became a subsidiary of

AQ Interactive AQ Interactive, Inc. was a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. AQ stands for Artistic Quality. It was the parent company of the developers Artoon, Cavia (company), Cavia and feelplus, and most recently the U.S. pu ...

in May 2004 and became a wholly owned subsidiary in June 2005. The team was primarily affiliated in the United States with

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

projects, although they had also worked with

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game company known for releasing numerous titles across video game consoles, home computers, and mobile phones. Headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo, it also maintained an office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo. F ...

and

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

on other platforms.

Overview

Key Artoon personnel include Yoji Ishii, Manabu Kusunoki, Hidetoshi Takeshita, Yutaka Sugano, Masamichi Harada,

Takuya Matsumoto Takuya Matsumoto (松本拓也, born February 6, 1989) is a Japanese former football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. ...

and

Naoto Ohshima (born February 26, 1964) is a Japanese video game designer and artist, best known for designing Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman from Sega's ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' franchise. Although Yuji Naka made a tech demo around which ''Sonic'' gameplay ...

. When the company formed, it drew personnel and talent from several of

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

's development teams, particularly those which worked on ''

Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game series and media franchise created by the Japanese developers Yuji Naka, Naoto Ohshima, and Hirokazu Yasuhara for Sega. The franchise follows Sonic the Hedgehog (character), Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battle ...

'' (created by Ōshima), and ''

Panzer Dragoon ''Panzer Dragoon'' is a video game series developed and published by Sega. The first three games — '' Panzer Dragoon'' (1995), '' Panzer Dragoon II Zwei'' (1996), and '' Panzer Dragoon Saga'' (1998) — were produced by Team Andromeda for ...

''. The developer had approximately 85 employees. The company's focus was to create original game content for various consoles. Artoon closed down when the parent company, AQ Interactive, filed for bankruptcy. Artoon was situated in

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

Kanagawa prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. A secondary studio was maintained in

Naha is the Cities of Japan, capital city of Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. As of 1 June 2019, the city has an estimated population of 317,405 and a population density of 7,939 people per km2 (20,562 persons per sq. mi.). ...

Okinawa most commonly refers to: * Okinawa Prefecture, Japan's southernmost prefecture * Okinawa Island, the largest island of Okinawa Prefecture * Okinawa Islands, an island group including Okinawa itself * Okinawa (city), the second largest city in th ...

prefecture, Japan. Artoon, along with

Feelplus Feelplus Inc. (株式会社フィールプラス Kabushiki gaisha Fiirupurasu) was a Japanese video game developer and a subsidiary of AQ Interactive. The studio was conceived by Microsoft Game Studios specifically to aid Mistwalker in video g ...

and

Cavia ''Cavia'' is a genus in the subfamily Caviinae that contains the rodents commonly known as the guinea pigs or cavies. The best-known species in this genus is the domestic guinea pig, ''Cavia porcellus'', a meat animal in South America and a com ...

, were all absorbed into parent company

Games developed

References

{{Artoon Defunct video game companies of Japan Video game companies established in 1999 Video game companies disestablished in 2010 Video game development companies Japanese companies established in 1999 Japanese companies disestablished in 2010 AQ Interactive

Overview

Games developed

See also

References