Q-Games

About

Independent developer based in Japan; founded by Dylan Cuthbert. Known for their PixelJunk series of games. Q-Games also developed the XrossMediaBar (XMB).

Q-Games was founded in September 2001 by Dylan Cuthbert, previously employed at Argonaut Games, where he worked on Starglider, Starglider 2, X, Star Fox and Star Fox 2. Cuthbert then went on to work at Sony America where he developed Blasto. He was then relocated to Sony Japan where Cuthbert created the "Ducks demo" that showcased the PlayStation 2's power to early developers. His final game with Sony was Ape Escape before he left the company and founded Q-Games. Q-Games revealed their first projects at E3 2004 in the form of tech demos for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS. The GBA tech demo would eventually turn out to be Digidrive, Q-Games installment in Nintendo's bit Generations puzzle series, while the DS tech demo would turn out to be Star Fox Command. However, Q-Games first big success would come at E3 2007 where the company revealed their brand new IP, PixelJunk. The first installment would be released just a month after its reveal at E3 in the form of PixelJunk Racers, which was met with a very lukewarm reception from critics. In January 2008, Q-Games released Pixel Junk Monsters, which was met with much more positive critical reception. Just a few months later, in July 2008, PixelJunk Eden was released with PixelJunk Shooter following in December 2009.