Sucker Punch Productions

Sucker Punch Productions is an American video game production company founded in 1997 and based in Bellevue, Washington. It is an independent company, but has worked exclusively with Sony Computer Entertainment since 2000.

History
In 1999, Sucker Punch released its first game, Rocket: Robot on Wheels, for the Nintendo 64. After signing a new deal with Sony in 2000, the company went on to create the Sly Cooper series for the PlayStation 2. One common characteristic of the Rocket and Sly Cooper games is that they featured a raccoon playing a major role.

The company most recently developed Infamous for the PlayStation 3, heralding a move from level-based games portraying cel-shaded, anthropomorphic animals to a fully streaming sandbox game depicting more realistic-looking humans and protagonists with acrobatic abilities.

The company was founded in 1997 and according to the company's website it "started at the roots of Microsoft, where the co-founders all worked in a variety of productivity and software development applications. All shared a love for video games, yet only one had game development experience." The group decided to leave Microsoft in 1997 and became the independent company it is today that has worked with Sony to make the Sly Cooper franchise. The company name came as one of several proposed by the company that they would not have been able to use at Microsoft due to that company's policies. Co-founder Chris Zimmerman showed the list to his wife for her opinion, and she responded that she didn't care "as long as it isn't 'Sucker Punch'". Considering the opinion of a middle-aged woman would be completely contrary to the demographics of their target audience, they selected that name for the company.

Sucker Punch is considered one of Sony's "platformer trio", which also includes Naughty Dog, as well as Insomniac Games, though Insomniac has chosen to take its latest IP to multiple consoles beyond solely PlayStation platforms. Although the two companies have started to venture into more mature outings, they have also recently started to continue their series, such as Naughty Dog handing over production of their latest Jak and Daxter title to High Impact Games. In addition, Sucker Punch has recently stated that they wish to continue the Sly Cooper franchise at some point in the near future. Another game company, Sanzaru Games are currently developing The Sly Collection, a remastered port of the PlayStation 2 Sly games onto PlayStation 3. In addition, Nihilistic Software are developing Heroes on the Move, a cross-over PS3 title featuring Sly Cooper and two other popular characters, Ratchet and Jak. A sequel to Infamous was officially announced when the cover of Game Informer's July 2010 issue was a picture of inFAMOUS 2, along with the magazine containing a ten page preview of the game.