Q-Games

Q-Games, Limited

Type	Public
Industry	Video games
Founded	August 9, 2001[1]
Headquarters	Nakagyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan
Key people	Dylan Cuthbert (President/Managing Director) Kenkichi Shimooka (Vice-President/Director)[1]
Products	Digidrive, Star Fox Command, PixelJunk series
Parent	Independent

Q-Games, Limited is a video game developer based in Nakagyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan^[2] which works closely with both Nintendo and Sony.^[1]

Foundation

Q-Games was founded by Dylan Cuthbert,^[3] who previously worked at Argonaut Software and helped create Starglider and Starglider 2 for Argonaut Software, then gave programming assistance to X and the first Star Fox for Nintendo. He also developed Star Fox 2 to completion before heading off to work at Sony America to make Blasto on the PlayStation. After this, Dylan moved back to Japan to work at Sony Japan, where, in early 1999, he developed the Duck in a Bath technical demo (Ducks demo) that showcased the PS2's power to early developers and publishers.^[4] Following that, he developed Pipo Saru 2001 and then left Sony to start Q-Games Ltd. in Kyoto in September 2001.

History

The first few years were spent accumulating staff and developing behind-doors technology projects for a number of clients including Sony and Microsoft. At E3 2004, they showed two graphic technology demos^[5][6] for the PlayStation Portable and then internally began development on two games, one for the Game Boy Advance and one for the Nintendo DS. These titles were announced as Digidrive (part of the bit Generations series of puzzle games for the Game Boy Advance) and Star Fox Command respectively. Both were later released.

Following these projects, Q-Games began to collaborate with Sony Computer Entertainment, becoming a second-party studio partner, by developing the PixelJunk series of downloadable games for the PlayStation 3. They are available for download and purchase on the PlayStation Network Store worldwide. PixelJunk games are presented in 1080p full HD. PixelJunk made its worldwide debut on 11 July 2007 at E3 2007, held in Santa Monica, CA. At TGS 2009, Q-Games confirmed that it is extremely unlikely these games will ever appear on the Xbox 360.^[7]

Q-Games have also worked with Nintendo again, releasing several games for the Nintendo DSi's DSiWare digital distribution service.

Games developed

Other projects

As well as games development, Q-Games still develops technology directly with Sony Japan for the PlayStation 3. The PS3's XMB (Xross Media Bar) interface, background and music visualisers were developed by Q-Games and they are credited with 3D Graphics Technology in the About PS3 section of the PS3's OS.

PlayStation Home

On September 24, 2009, Q-Games released their own developer space for their series, PixelJunk in the PlayStation 3's online community-based service, PlayStation Home to the Japanese version and on October 9, 2009 to the North American version. The "PixelJunk Museum" (Japan), or "PixelJunk Exhibition" (North America), features the games PixelJunk Eden, PixelJunk Monsters, and PixelJunk Racers. For PixelJunk Eden there are glass wall art displays, for PixelJunk Monsters, there are displays of familiar characters from the game, and for PixelJunk Racers, there are displays of two different race cars. There is also a virtual shop in the space selling PixelJunk virtual items. In Japan's version from September 24, 2009 to October 9, 2009, near the shop, there was a panel that took users to a virtual version of Q-Games TGS 2009 Booth. Called the "Q-Games virtual public TGS Booth", it was a virtual recreation of the Q-Games TGS 2009 Booth that had a free T-shirt and a video screen.^[8] On December 17, 2009, they released another exhibition room to the "PixelJunk Exhibition" space. This room is to display PixelJunk Shooter and is called the "PixelJunk Shooter Mother Ship Hangar."

References

Sources

• Chris Kohler's book Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life - Chapter 6.
• An Interview on Gamasutra.com with Q-Games(English)
• Dylan Cuthbert's profile on N-Sider.com(English)
• Dylan Cuthbert video interview on the 1-UP Show (English)

External links

• Q-Games Official website