Argonaut Software

United Kingdom · Founded 1982 · Developer

Jez San's British studio, which made the 3D shooter Starglider, designed the Super FX chip for Nintendo and programmed Star Fox.

Jez San founded Argonaut as a teenager in 1982. Its Starglider (1986) for the Atari ST and Amiga brought fast wireframe 3D to home computers, and Argonaut's 3D expertise led to a partnership with Nintendo. Dylan Cuthbert worked with Nintendo R&D1 on X, a 3D space game for the Game Boy, and a prototype codenamed nesGlider grew into a Super NES project. To make real 3D possible on the Super NES, Nintendo commissioned Argonaut to design a custom processor: the Super FX, a RISC processor. Star Fox (1993) was designed by Nintendo EAD and programmed by Argonaut, and Stunt Race FX followed in 1994. Argonaut later made the PlayStation platformer Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (1997), and in 1998 spun off its chip design division as ARC, named after the Argonaut RISC Core. Its shares stopped trading in October 2004, and the company was dissolved in 2007.