Nihon Telenet

Founded: 1983

Defunct: 2007

T-series code: T-49

Headquarters:

Tokyo, Japan

Nihon Telenet (日本テレネット) commonly known as Telenet Japan, was a software developer and publisher founded in 1983.

The company built its fortunes developing and publishing for Japanese home computers, before entering the console market at the beginning of the 1990s. Most notably, Telenet owned development studio Wolf Team, which would create several hits in Japan during its existence. For unknown reasons Telenet chose to publish under several brands on home consoles; Renovation Game, Riot, Laser Soft, the North American arm, Renovation Products (bought by Sega in 1993) and the occasional no-frills Telenet Japan release. Any internal development was usually credited solely to Telenet Japan (or Wolf Team).

They ceased developing for Sega systems company-wide in 1993 for unknown reasons, selling Renovation to Sega and establishing their largest success, Wolf Team's Tales series, on the SNES. Telenet Japan themselves would continue to produce games on the SNES, PlayStation, and Game Boy Advance, as well as enter the pachinko business.

Telenet Japan closed down in 2007 after a string of financial mistakes (including the infamous licensing of various properties to Eants, a hentai developer, a few years earlier), and with the exception of Wolf Team's Tales series (owned by Namco, now Bandai Namco) and Tokyo Twilight Busters (owned by Starfish-SD), all their intellectual properties were owned by Sunsoft. Sunsoft sold the IPs to City Connection, which were bought by Edia in January 2020.