Artoon Co., Ltd.
株式会社アートゥーン

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	August 27, 1999[1]
Founder	Naoto Ohshima Yoji Ishii
Defunct	c. 2010
Fate	Absorbed intoAQ Interactive
Successor	Arzest
Headquarters	Yokohama, Japan[2]
Key people	Naoto Ohshima (president and CEO) Yoji Ishii (chairman)
Number of employees	85
Parent	AQ Interactive

Artoon Co., Ltd. (株式会社アートゥーンKabushiki-Gaisha Ātūn) was a Japanesevideo game developer established in 1999 by formerSega members, namelyNaoto Ohshima and Yoji Ishii. The studio was primarily affiliated in the United States with projects onMicrosoft'sXbox andXbox 360, although they had also worked withHudson Soft andNintendo on other platforms.

Artoon was situated inYokohama,Kanagawa, with a secondary office inNaha,Okinawa.^[3] It became a subsidiary of AQ Interactive in May 2004, and was fully acquired in June 2005. Around 2010, Artoon, along with AQ's other development studiosFeelplus andCavia, were absorbed into AQ.

Artoon was founded on August 27, 1999 byYoji Ishii, along with Naoto Ohshima, both of whom had left Sega the previous year. Additional ex-Sega staff joining Artoon included Manabu Kusunoki, Hidetoshi Takeshita, Yutaka Sugano, Masamichi Harada, and Takuya Matsumoto. Most of the Sega members hailed fromSonic Team, but a few (like Kusunoki) also worked on thePanzer Dragoon series atTeam Andromeda. The studio's name was taken from the word "cartoon".^[4] Throughout its life, Artoon employed approximately 85 people. Artoon's first game wasPinobee: Wings of Adventure, released byHudson Soft in 2001.

When theXbox launched in Japan in February 2002, Artoon was one of the developers chosen by Microsoft, who began seeking Japanese developers in an attempt to gain a foothold in the market by creating games to appeal to the Japanese market. The end result wasBlinx: The Time Sweeper, released in Japan on December 12, 2002.

Artoon was acquired by publisherAQ Interactive in May 2004 and became a subsidiary. Artoon was fully acquired by AQ in June 2005 and became a wholly-owned subsidiary alongside developersFeelplus andCavia. In the process, Artoon co-founder Ishii moved to AQ to become its President and CEO. Some of Artoon's later games would be published in Japan by AQ.

Artoon collaborated withHironobu Sakaguchi'sMistwalker to developBlue Dragon, anXbox 360 title on which Artoon did much of the work. Around the same time, it collaborated with Nintendo again to developYoshi's Island DS.

In its final years, the studio collaborated withSony Computer Entertainment onEchoshift, andDisney Interactive Studios onClub Penguin: Game Day!

In June 2010, Yoji Ishii stepped down from AQ Interactive. Around the same time, Artoon, along withFeelplus andCavia, were all absorbed into AQ.^[5] Artoon's final game wasFlingSmash, released in 2010.

Around the same time as Artoon's dissolution, Ohshima, Ishii, and the remaining staff formed a new studio,Arzest, based in Artoon's former offices.

• Arzest

• 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

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