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Native name | 株式会社テクノスジャパン |
|---|---|
Romanized name | Kabushiki gaisha Tekunosu Japan |
| Company type | Public |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | December 1981; 43 years ago (December 1981) |
| Founders |
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| Defunct | 1996; 29 years ago (1996) |
| Fate | Bankruptcy |
| Successor | Arc System Works |
| Headquarters | Nakano, Tokyo,Japan |
Key people |
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Technōs Japan Corp.[1] was aJapanese video gamedeveloper, best known for theDouble Dragon andKunio-kunfranchises (the latter includingRenegade,Super Dodge Ball andRiver City Ransom) as well asKarate Champ,The Combatribes andVoltage Fighter Gowcaizer. As of June 2015,Arc System Works owns the intellectual properties ofTechnōs Japan.[2]
Initially operating from a single-roomapartment, Technōs was founded in 1981 by three staff members ofData East. Their first game wasMinky Monkey, released in 1982. A few months after their foundation, a lawsuit was brought up against the company by Data East under allegations that Technos had stolen data from Data East's arcade gamePro Tennis with the intent of producing and selling a bootleg of it.[3] The two companies settled in August 1983 and Technos would go on to create two arcade games published by Data East,Tag Team Wrestling andKarate Champ. Technōs Japan's earlier games were published by other companies, as Technōs at the time did not have the economical resource to distribute their own games.
Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun ("Hot Blooded Tough Guy Kunio"), a side-scrollingbeat-em-up released in 1986 about ahigh school student who fought thugs and delinquents from other schools, was the company's first big hit inJapan.Kunio-kun was released in the west asRenegade with the game's graphics changed to make the game marketable in the overseas market. Technōs would then produce aNintendo Entertainment System version of the game, which would be Technōs' first game for the home console market. Technōs Japan's subsequent arcade beat-em-up,Double Dragon, was a big success worldwide when it was released in 1987, leading to the production of an NES version of the game, as well as licensed versions by other companies for various platforms.
The success ofKunio-kun led to the production of numerousspin-offs andsequels starring the same character produced for the 8-bit Family Computer platform in Japan and later for theGame Boy andSuper Famicom, resulting in more than twenty games starring Kunio by the mid-1990s, many of which were rule-bendingsports games. A fewKunio-kun games were localized for the North American market; namelySuper Dodge Ball,River City Ransom andNintendo World Cup, but none maintain any connection with each other. Technōs would attempt to remedy this by attempting to localize severalKunio-kun under theCrash 'n the Boys label, but onlyCrash 'n the Boys: Street Challenge was released (the game's ending features a teaser forIce Challenge, which was unreleased).
Technōs also released two arcade sequels toDouble Dragon:Double Dragon II: The Revenge in 1988 andDouble Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone in 1990 (the latter was developed by an external development team at East Technology), and produced the respective NES versions of those games, as well asSuper Double Dragon in 1992, an original installment for theSuper NES. An American-producedDouble Dragon animated series and a live-action film were also made as well.
Outside theDouble Dragon andKunio-kun games, Technōs produced a few original games for the arcade and home markets such asU.S. Championship V'Ball,The Combatribes andShadow Force, as well as twoWWF arcade games (WWF Superstars andWWF Wrestlefest), but most of these games (aside from the WWF arcade games) did not achieve the same kind of success thatKunio-kun andDouble Dragon achieved. The company's last games were produced for theNeo Geo hardware, which include aDouble Dragonfighting game based on the movie, their second and last fighting gameVoltage Fighter Gowcaizer, and a Neo Geo sequel toSuper Dodge Ball. By 1996, Technōs Japan declared bankruptcy and ceased operations. Some of the developers who worked on the Neo Geo titles (including Kengo Asai) briefly worked at Face, a former affiliate ofSNK.
Following the closure, a licensing company named Million Co., Ltd was formed to purchase the former intellectual properties of Technōs Japan. Million continued to produce new games such asSuper Dodge Ball Advance,Double Dragon Advance andRiver City Ransom EX for theGame Boy Advance,Super Dodgeball Brawlers for theNintendo DS, as well as reissuing older titles via theVirtual Console and other services. In June 2015, Arc System Works acquired all intellectual properties of Technōs Japan from Million Co., Ltd.
Technōs Japan had a subsidiary in theU.S. called American Technōs Inc., which was originally located inBeaverton, Oregon until 28th of February 1991[4] then atCupertino, California. American Technōs was formed in 1987, shortly after the release ofDouble Dragon at the arcades and published all of Technōs Japan's arcade games in North America beginning withDouble Dragon II: The Revenge. While the majority of Technōs Japan's console games were still licensed to other companies such asTradewest (Double Dragon andSuper Double Dragon),Acclaim Entertainment (Double Dragon II andIII),CSG Imagesoft (Super Dodge Ball) and evenNintendo (Super Spike V'Ball andNintendo World Cup), American Technōs also managed to publish a few console games, namelyRiver City Ransom andCrash 'n the Boys: Street Challenge for the NES,Super Double Dragon (co-published with Tradewest) andThe Combatribes for the Super NES, andGeom Cube for the PlayStation. American Technōs also publishedSuper Bowling (developed by Athena) andSuper Pinball: Behind the Mask (developed by Meldac/KAZe) for the Super NES and the helicopter gameStrike Point for the PlayStation.[5] American Technōs was still operating after Technōs Japan's demise until sometime during the late 1990s. Its former president was Keiichi Iwamoto.
All games are listed by original Japanese titles unless otherwise noted.Neo Geo games are listed separately from the other arcade games. This list does not take account licensed versions that were released by other companies (such as theMaster System port ofDouble Dragon and thePC Engine ports of the Kunio games published by Naxat Soft) or games that were produced by Million, the subsequent copyrights holder of Technōs Japan's former properties. Also, all of the following games are listed by their original Japanese release date.
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