Tengen

Tengen

Founded: 1987-12-21
Defunct: 1994-06-28
Merged into: Time Warner Interactive
Headquarters: 1623 Buckeye Drive, Milpitas, California 95035, United States^[1]

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Tengen (テンゲン) was a division of Atari Games responsible for developing and publishing console games as well as licensing games made by other companies that contain Atari Games' properties. Some of Tengen's console games were ports of Atari Games' arcade titles, including Klax and Marble Madness.

History

Atari had been split into two distinct companies; Atari Corporation was responsible for computer and console games and hardware and owned the rights to the Atari brand for these domains. Atari Games was formed from Atari's arcade division, and were able to use the Atari name on arcade releases but not on console or computer games. When Atari Games wanted to enter the console-game market, it needed to create a new label that did not use the Atari name. The new subsidiary was dubbed Tengen, which in the Chinese game Go refers to the central point of the board (the word "Atari" comes from the same game). Tengen started off as a group of testers, but later expanded to include its own development team.^[2]

Tengen went on to produce games for the PC Engine alongside other consoles. Multiple games for the system, most of which are ports of Atari Games arcade titles, were announced for the system, however almost all of them were cancelled - only a PC Engine port of Klax was ever released. Time Warner, which had become the majority owner of Atari Games in 1993, merged Tengen with Atari Games and Time Warner Interactive (TWI) brand.