Technōs Japan

Technōs Japan Corporation (株式会社テクノスジャパン) was a Japanese video game developer founded by former Data East staff members in 1981. The company's first big hit in Japan was the 1986 arcade game Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun, a side-scrolling beat-'em-up involving juvenile delinquent. Kunio-kun would go on to be a huge franchise, spawning numerous spinoffs on the Famicom and Super Famicom platforms, some of which had graphically altered versions made for the overseas market (including the original Kunio-kun, which became Renegade). The company also scored an international hit with the 1987 arcade hit Double Dragon, a spiritual successor to Renegade which went on to become a popular franchise in North America and further cemented their status as a beat-'em-up pioneer.

Technōs initially operated from an apartment office located at the Nishi-Shinjuku district of Shinjuku, Tokyo. They transferred over to Kabukichō in 1987, the same year they also established their U.S. subsidiary American Technos Incorporated in Cupertino, California. The company eventually moved from Shinjuku to Nakano in 1992, having constructed their own headquarters building called the Technōs Nakano Building. Unfortunately, Technōs was unable to support the maintenance cost of their new headquarters due to the diminishing sales of later Kunio-kun games, a result of their inability to adapt to newer gaming platforms once the Famicom was being put out of pasture and the difficulty of localizing the series due to their Japanese-centric nature. Despite the international appeal of Double Dragon, Technōs never saw much profits from overseas sales of that series either due to their licensing agreement with Tradewest, who were granted the publishing rights to the console versions of the Double Dragon games outside Japan in addition to merchandising rights. Technōs eventually declared bankruptcy in 1996, with its assets eventually being sold on to Million Co., Ltd in 2001 and later on to Arc System Works in 2015. The Technōs Nakano Building underwent various owners and tenants afterward, eventually changing its name to the Ichigo Nakano North Building on October 1, 2013.

As a third-party, Technōs initially only published games on Nintendo consoles while authorizing licensed ports on competing platforms produced by other companies such as PALSOFT on the Mega Drive and Naxat Soft on the PC Engine. Technōs eventually did obtain a third-party publishing license from Sega, but only developed two games for their platforms, one which was unreleased.

Softography

Technōs Japan

From Sega Retro

Contents

Softography

Master System

Mega Drive

Game Gear