Dylan Cuthbert

Biography

Dylan Cuthbert began programming far earlier than some might expect; he began at the age of 11 when a friend lent him his ZX81. Other platforms he has developed for include the Spectrum, BBC Micro, Amiga, Gameboy, Super Nintendo, PC, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS and Playstation 3. His interest soon spread to 3D technology, and when he realized none of his teachers in high school could help him carry on in this field he dropped out to work for Argonaut Games. His work developing 3D techonology for the Gameboy attracted the attention of Nintendo, who signed a contract with Argonaut to develop a game with this technology. This led Dylan to Japan (where he currently resides) to work for Nintendo developing Star Fox. In 1995 Dyan was greatly impressed by the 3D technology behind Playstation's Ridge Racer and left Argonaut to return to the US and work for Sony of America to work on the game Blasto. He returned to Japan two years later to work with Sony on the development of the Playstation 2, and was responsible for creating two of the initial tech demos intended to show of the system's capabilities. He worked on the development of Pipo Saru 2001, where he met Ape Escape creator Kenkichi Shimooka. The two also worked together on the "ducks in a bath" tech demo for the Playstation 2.

In September of 2001 Dylan left, with the support of SCE to create his own studio with Kenkichi Shimooka called Q-Games in Kyoto, Kenkicki's home city. Dylan chose the location of Kyoto was chosen specifically for it's bohemian high technology and friendly atmosphere. He originally left to focus on game development and online technology for the Playstation 2, specifically, looking to develop an MMO (the project was later dropped). Within a few years Dylan managed to build the company up from 3 people to 20, eventually double that number to 40 to allow for two releases to be developed in parallel. Dylan's decision to keep his team to around 20 people was influenced by his work at Nintendo, where the team he worked on was roughly the same size. While recruiting programmers Dylan ran into the problem that most Japanese schools which offered programming did not adequately prepare their students for the working world. This led him to hire two programmers from the UK, James McLaren and Jerome Leard.

In 2004, the company moved due to an increase in the number of employees (though they remain within Kyoto). Q-Games has found large success in publishing the Pixel Junk series for the Playstation 3 Network. In 2009 Dyan made the decision not to port any of Q-Games' titles onto PSP, saying, "I don't think we'll port anything else to the PSP...as there is a lot of piracy," going on to say, "It was a shock to login to a [PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe] chat room and hear them talking about how they were all playing ripped versions."