ProtoGame Entertainment

Current Logo, used since 2011

ProtoGame Entertainment is a Japanese game studio, mostly founded around Osaka

History[]

ProtoGame Entertainment Started off as a Manga and Board Game maker in 1929, the founder of the company (Kenichi Satoshi) had been making board games for 10 years after the board game he made when he was 10 years old "Junkie Madou" became an instant hit in Japan, he decided to make a company that makes trending board games in Japan, although now they still make Board Games, they make more Video Games than that now

Game Series[]

Current[]

Cat Alexander (Action Platformer, The Company Mascot) (Since 1989)
Fighters Tournament (Fighting) (Since 1990)
Molly/Mitsuki's Universe Of Menace (RPG-Action/Hack'n Slash) (Since 1997)
ProtoGame UNIVERSAL Battle (Fighting, ProtoGame's Answer to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros) (2000-present)
Aiza And The Magic Wand (Platformer/Beat-Em-Up) (1998-present)
Marcus Stone (Lightgun/Rail shooter, 1997-2010, 2023-present)
Heroes of Freedom (Beatemup, 1993-1999, 2011-present)
Code G3M3N1 (Lightgun/Railshooter like Marcus Stone, 1998-2011, 2024-present)
The Man Of Disco (Rhythm Parappa-Style) (1998-2003/2021-present, has two spin-offs centering on his daughter Maki and son Kenji respectively)
TBA

Former[]

The Trouble Maker (Action-Topdown) (1982-1996, a series of Arcade action, had a rerelease collection in 2020)
Negus (RPG-Strategy) (2006-2023)
The Adventure (Puzzle Platformer) (1999-2008)
Precise Piano (Traditional Rhythm game, 1994-2004)
TBA

Consoles[]

ProtoGame Debut System (1972) - Sold 500,000 Units, Discontinued 1981
ProtoGame Sequel (1978) - Sold 3.36 Million Units, Discontinued 1988
ProtoGame 3rd Crash (1984) - Sold 14.2 Million Units, Discontinued 1995
ProtoGame Quadriple (1989) - Sold 25 Million Units, Discontinued 1998 (2000 in Japan)
ProtoGame Podium (1994) - Sold 67 Million Units, Discontinued 2003 (2005 in Japan)
ProtoGame BIGShot (2000) - Sold 72 Million Units, Discontinued 2011 (2012 in Japan)
ProtoGame Quirk (2007) - Sold 21.3 Million Units, Discontinued 2017 (2015 in Japan)
ProtoGame Eagle (2014) - Sold 36 Million Units so far
ProtoGame ProtoGEAR (2021) - Sold 123 Million Units So Far
PCS (2018-2022, 2024-present) - Sold 25.8 Million Units.

Arcade Board[]

ProtoGame Trip (1978-1985)
ProtoGame A (1983-1989)
ProtoGame GD (1988-1996) - 31 games
ProtoGame GD+ (1992-1998) - 23 games
ProtoGame RTS (1995-2004) - 51 games
ProtoGame EMX (2000-2008) - 20 games
ProtoGame PHOTOSYNTHESIS (2007-2011) - 9 games
ProtoGame DEPOT (2022-present) - 21 games

Handheld[]

Player Alpha (1990)
Player Beta (1995)
Player Gamma (2000)
Player Delta (2005)
Player Epsilon (2010)

Tolerance of Fangames[]

ProtoGame is accepting of fan games and is the only current console maker (Sega left the console market) to actually love fan games, they are still cautious in case on bootlegs and fangame scams.

ProtoGame also sells legal ROMs of their older games once their said game has became ten years old minimum, five dollars per six roms, one dollar per each rom, this also gives that ProtoGame actually cares about video game preservation.

Trivia[]

Their first 3 consoles saw commercial moderate success on their respective times (200K, 6 Million and 14 Million With the Debut, Sequel and 3rd Crash respectively.
ProtoGame sued Data Design Interactive because of the Myth Makers series being a rip-off of Mitsuki's Universe of Menace for $5,000,000, ProtoGame was the victor and Data Design Interactive went bankrupt because of the lawsuit, which does not help is that the fact Mitsuki was made 8-9 years before DDI even made Trixie in Toyland.
ProtoGame was one of the only two who have consoles in every generation and never left the console market, the other being Nintendo.
In South Korea (specifically during the time consoles from foreign countries are being manufactured by Local car companies), ProtoGame Consoles are manufactured by LG, and went under the names "Omicron" (ProtoGame Quadriple), "Metaphor" (ProtoGame Podium), and "Widow" (ProtoGame BIGShot), beginning with the ProtoGame QUIRK, the retain their original name, but it would be manufactured by KIA Motors, it wasn't untill the ProtoGEAR that ProtoGame finally got to manufacture their own consoles in South Korea.
How ProtoGame's light gun crosshairs react to Normal Controllers react differently, one of two things happens
- If the crosshair is being controlled by an analog thumbstick, instead of working like how other light-gun games just deals with D-Pad, It actually follows the degree the thumbstick is being held, this is called the "ProtoGame Method"
- If the crosshair is being controlled by a d-pad, it will act the same as how other games of it's type does it.
ProtoGame's arcade games from the ProtoGame Trip and ProtoGame A Era has limited continues (a la Konami), but it's a little more lenient (Konami only allows three, while ProtoGame allows five), You Don't Know Jack is infamous for this, where players are only given one life per credit, in which what makes it worse, is that the player can extend Jack's health, which EATS OUT ONE OUT OF FIVE CONTINUES, AND A BOTTOMLESS PIT WILL INSTANTLY KILL JACK!!, Which means players have a maximum of six lives depending if the player buys life extenders or not, the same thing happens to Konami's Haunted Castle (a Castlevania Spin-off) thanks to the said stricter continue limit above., beginning with Cat Alexander, players can continue as many times as they want, the dipswitch can still be edited to enable limited continues (this time, between one and nine continues, instead of just a fixed limit of five), it's just that the continue limit is now disabled by default. Speaking of You Don't Know Jack, it's 1992 sequel, You Still Don't Know Jack, now has infinite continues (by default), but now, Jack dies in three hits in turn (instead of a life bar like the first), and you can't exchange your credits for extra hits, Jack still has only one life per credit, You Don't Know Jack's use of this five continue limit would later spawn the ProtoGame Rebound Syndrome.

Logo History[]

1997-2011[]

2011-present[]

Tropes[]

Main[]

No Damage Run:
- for the arcade games beginning with ANIMAN, you will get an extra bonus if you beat the game without using continues (rebounds included), sometimes you get a larger bonus if you did not lose any lives/lost any rounds, and (for the games that have traditional lives and health), an EVEN LARGER BONUS.
  - The Marcus Stone series after the first gave you a "True Survivor" bonus if you beat the game without using continues, and rewards you a "Savage" reward if you beat the game without taking any damage.
  - TimeKid awards you with either one million, two and a half million, or five million points if you beat the game without ever using continues, never ever dying, and never taking damage respectively.
  - the Code G3M3N1 series has the same True Survivor bonus as the Marcus Stone series, although there is no reward for taking no damage, in which you get the No Continue reward instead.
  - Nyami's Monster Mayhem has the "Lucky" achievement which doubles your current score.
No Fair Cheating: Downplayed, using the ProtoGame Rebound Syndrome allows the game to play as normal, but you lose the score reward that you gets you a lot of extra points that you could have won if you didn't use continues.
ProtoGame Rebound Syndrome: The Trope Namer, and probably the Trope Codifier.

YMMV[]

Americans Hate Tingle:
- While Taft is nowadays greatly abhored, South America takes it too far by making it a crime to even possess a copy and/or file of any of the two Taft games, the punishment for being caught?, INSTANT DEATH SENTENCE.
- ProtoGame is, made fun of at best in Poland (where PlayStation is the most loved there), every kid with a ProtoGame Player Delta was always prone to massive amounts of bullying (in one case, drove one kid to murder his bullies), and ProtoGame fans from Polish being quite picky and complain alot, especially on Cat Alexander, Molly's Universe of Menace and Fighters Tournament, this has gotten so bad, to the point that ProtoGame avoids to make Polish characters, and refuse to translate their games in Polish.
Audience-Alienating Era:
Condemed By History: Taft had the worst treatment of this trope ever in video games, so bad, that it seems even Bubsy had a light treatment, no, seriously, Taft (who is also ProtoGame's former mascot before Alexander Forestail) was actually regarded THE best arcade game in 1980 (with the only one defeating it being Pac-Man), when it was released, Taft made it to ALOT of home computers and was even made unofficial ports for NES (being the only ProtoGame title that actually made it to a competitor's console prior to the beginning of homebrew) later in 1984, but, people and people grew less fond of the Taft duology, by the time the ProtoGame Podium made it's debut, opinions on Taft went down from being one of THE best arcade games ever, into having mixed reviews, ProtoGame considered either make a third installment or a remake to the duology, but because of the decline of the reputation of Taft, ProtoGame dropped it, not helping is that ProtoGame's current mascot, Alexander Forestail, is widely successful at the time, especially that the brown forest/bobtail hybrid was a huge hit for the company, when the 2000's hit, Taft and it's sequel are now considered as one of the worst video games ever, retrospective reviews are very, very, VERY harsh on the living taffy, Taft became the official mascot of worst games ever, with how bad it is being no less than being in the top three worst games ever, and you will 100% get harassed if you mention Taft without any negativity (Filipinos had to do a whole-ass essay of separating Taft, the game, and Taft Avenue), this got so bad, that Taft became a boss in ProtoGame UNIVERSAL Battle (2000) as the big bad, and ProtoGame canonically having Alexander Forestail defeating him, and getting killed by the original characters of the said game, this outcome caused a MASSIVE Fandom Rivalry between fans of Taft and Cat Alexander.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- ProtoGame is actually the most popular console manufacturer in South Korea during the fourth and fifth generation with the ProtoGame Quadriple (Omicron) selling as much as 640,000 units and ProtoGame Podium (Metaphor) being the only console to pass the 2 million unit mark (at least before the Nintendo Switch?), around 2.1 million units to be exact, thanks to LG's marketing tactics and Alexander Forestail being the most famous video game mascot (BY A LANDSLIDE!) than Mario and Sonic, and the PlayStation barely having any exposure in South Korea, as a token of their gratitude, ProtoGame allowed LG to remix one of any music from any video game they have without having to pay any royalty, LG chose the title music of Cat Alexander Explore, which LG remixed it into a slower and shorter tune, that tune is often called as "Bee Line".
- While the ProtoGame QUIRK is still seen as a disappointment in Japan, it was actually Vindicated By History outside Asia thanks to the homebrew community.
- ProtoGame is actually very popular in the Philippines after video games were no longer illegal there (it once was due to Martial Law during 1981 until the end of Martial Law), thanks to rentals and the crazy advertisements with these, bootlegs were actually there too, with the ProtoGame Quadriple being the Philippine's first exposure to 16 bit, what makes it even better is that Inigo Sanchez, one of the main characters of Fighters Tournament, is actually Filipino (and is the very first Filipino game character in general, predating Talim from Soulcalibur II by almost 12 years), to the point that a good chunk of Fighters Tournament (and to a smaller extent, Cat Alexander as filipinos find him cute) fan content being made by Filipinos, and not only that, but ProtoGame is actually the only game company to actually dub their games in filipino, although the dub is not that useful, it's just a way of ProtoGame returning the favor to the fillipino fans, ProtoGame is the only AAA Company who is well aware of the Philippines and acknowledge their filipino fans.
Memetic Mutation
- The ProtoGame Delta is often compared to the Gizmondo due to their similar technical limitations, with the difference being that the Delta has about 40% of the Gizmondo's ram, had triple the video ram, and the Delta's battery life being greater.
No Port For You: A strange exception with the ProtoGame DEPOT Titles (Except for The Arcade Impact versions of The RAP of Kenji and Maki The Pianist. which were just ports of existing console games), Where nowadays arcade games stays on arcade hardware thanks to how the controllers being designed, ProtoGame seems to make an exception, since they designed the machine with some of ProtoGEAR's components just to be able to port for the said console and/or the made some changes while the game was being ported.
Once Original, Now Common
- The ProtoGame BIGShot was the first console to allow widescreen from the ground up without hacking/modding the games, but it came with the trade-off being the maximum resolution had to be cut to 360p, the BIGShot's widescreen was it's biggest selling point, but came the 7th Generation, where the three competitors are capable of Widescreen, and doesn't have to sacrifice resolution, the QUIRK was also capable of widescreen without eating out resolution.
- The ProtoGame Player Alpha was the world's first handheld console with rechargeable battery that isn't an-add on, but rather an external one (you can replace it) in the form of a different model, the Beta and Gamma continue the tradition of giving two battery models, EC (stands for EConomy which are rechargeable) and DP (stands for Deviant Power, needing AA batteries), this became common when the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable had rechargeable batteries without needing an alternative that is the only way of battery powering, ProtoGame invented the Type-C charging port to distinguish themselves, nowadays, every smartphone, laptop, and even handhelds are rechargeable with Type-C.
Vindicated By History
- Consoles
  - The ProtoGame Quadriple was initially met with mixed reception, criticized for it's hardware being just a watered-down copy of the CP System I and being so pricey (at the time), cue 1991-1992 however and the console started having bangers.
  - The ProtoGame QUIRK was originally seen as a disappointing successor to the BIGShot, and is the worst-selling console the company has, to the point that it sold just as much as about twice as much the Dreamcast has sold, making it ProtoGame's second worst selling console, behind the ProtoGame 3rd Crash with 14.2 million units. (at least the 3rd Crash had the excuse of being released when console gaming was still in it's infancy), themain criticisms with the QUIRK being it's misleading title, which is not having any quirks whatsoever (Every console at the time now had widescreen (the QUIRK had that too), and even then it was already done by the ProtoGame BIGShot, the one that preceeded the QUIRK), reception toward the QUIRK has warmed up nowadays thanks to Homebrew ports and piracy.
- Games
  - Speeding Kennedy was seen as crude and frustrating