Just For Fun/Company Mascots

Atari.png
While Atari was never able to formally implement a mascot, they were planning to use Bentley Bear from Crystal Castles. The only other game Bentley appeared in was Atari Karts for the Jaguar.

Nintendo.png
Mario (Japanese: マリオ Hepburn: Mario?) is a fictional character in the Mario video game franchise by Nintendo, created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Serving as Nintendo's mascot and the eponymous protagonist of the series, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creation. Depicted as a short, pudgy, Italian plumber who resides in the Mushroom Kingdom, he repeatedly rescues Princess Peach from the turtle-like villain Bowser and stops his numerous plans to destroy him and take over the kingdom. Mario also has other enemies and rivals, including Donkey Kong and Wario.

Mario is said by many to be the most famous character in video game history. Mario games, as a whole, have sold more than 210 million units, making the Mario franchise the best-selling video game franchise of all time. Outside of the Super Mario platform series, he has appeared in video games of other genres, including the Mario Kart racing series, sports games, such as the Mario Tennis and Mario Golf series, role-playing video games such as Paper Mario and Super Mario RPG, and educational games, such as Mario Is Missing! and Mario's Time Machine. He has inspired television shows, film, comics and a line of licensed merchandise. Since 1995, he has been voiced by Charles Martinet.

Sega.png
Sonic the Hedgehog (ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ Sonikku za Hejjihoggu?), trademarked Sonic The Hedgehog, is the title character and protagonist of the Sonic the Hedgehog series released by Sega, as well as numerous spin-off comics, four animated shows, and an animated OVA. The first game was released on June 23, 1991, to provide Sega with a mascot to rival Nintendo's flagship character Mario (see 1991 in video gaming). Since then, Sonic has become one of the world's best-known video game characters, with his series selling more than 80 million copies. In 2005, Sonic was one of the first game character inductees into the Walk of Game, alongside Mario and Link.

While many individuals at Sega had a hand in Sonic's creation, programmer Yuji Naka and artist Naoto Ōshima are generally credited with the creation of the character, a blue 15-year-old anthropomorphic hedgehog, who has the ability to run at supersonic speeds and the ability to curl into a ball, primarily to attack enemies. This is a major part of the gameplay of the series.

Sony.png
Toro (トロ?), full name Toro Inoue (井上トロ Inoue Toro?), also known as the Sony Cat, is a fictional character created by Sony Computer Entertainment. He is an anthropomorphized cat who participates in numerous events and tries to act like a human.

Toro first appeared in the PlayStation game Doko Demo Issyo, and has since appeared in every PlayStation platform. While not as popular in the west, he serves as Sony's mascot in Japan - in particular, of the PlayStation Network.

Apple.png
The dogcow, also known as Clarus the Dogcow, is a bitmapped image first introduced by Apple. It is the shape of a dog, originally created in 1983 as part of the Cairo font by Susan Kare as the glyph for “z.” That image was later chosen for the Mac OS Page Setup dialog box, though it needed to be slightly redrawn because the original Cairo dog did not proportionally fit the Page Setup dialog box. This modified version became the image famously known as the dogcow.

The term “dogcow” was first coined by either Scott Zimmerman or Ginger Jernigan. Mark “The Red” Harlan named the dogcow “Clarus” as a joking reference to Claris, Apple’s office software unit at the time. The sound she makes is “Moof!”

The image of the dogcow was used to show the orientation and color of the paper in Mac OS page setup dialog boxes. HCI engineer Annette Wagner made the decision to use the dog from the Cairo font as a starting point for the page graphic. Wagner edited the original font and created a larger version with spots more suitable for demonstrating various printing options. The new dog graphic had a more bovine look, making it arguably less clear as to what animal it was intended to be, and after the print dialog was released the name “dogcow” came into use.

Dogcow also made appearances in Apple Developer CDs. In early volumes, a section was known as "Moof!".

Microsoft.png
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is a fictional character and protagonist of the Halo fictional universe, created by Bungie. Master Chief is a player character in the series of science fiction first-person shooter video games: Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 4. Outside of video games, the character appears in novels – Halo: The Fall of Reach, Halo: The Flood, Halo: First Strike, and Halo: Uprising – and has cameos in other Halo media, including Halo: Reach, Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, The Halo Graphic Novel, Halo Legends and Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. He is voiced by Chicago disc jockey Steve Downes in the video games in which he appears. Master Chief is one of the most visible symbols of the Halo series. Originally designed by Bungie artists including Marcus Lehto, Rob McLees and Shi Kai Wang, the character is a towering and faceless cybernetically-enhanced supersoldier; he is never seen without his green-colored armor and helmet. Downes based his personification of the Chief on an initial character sketch which called for a Clint Eastwood-type character of few words.

The Master Chief is a video game icon, a relative newcomer among more established franchise characters, such as Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog and Lara Croft. The character has received a mixed reception. Some have described the Chief's silent and faceless nature as a weakness of the character, while other publications suggested these attributes better allows players to assume his role.

Valve.png
The Heavy is a towering hulk of a man that hails from the USSR. He is the largest and possibly most dangerous class in Team Fortress 2. Boasting the most default health and devastating firepower from his trusty Minigun, the Heavy is no pushover. The Heavy's Minigun can inflict heavy damage at a high rate of fire, allowing him to mow down opposing babies, cowards and teeny-men in seconds. The Heavy's movement speed is his main weakness. Revving up or firing his Minigun brings his already unimpressive speed down to a snail's pace, making him a very easy target for Snipers and Spies. His slow speed makes him more dependent on support from Medics and Engineers to keep him in the fight. Aside from decimating entire teams, the Heavy is able to provide further support for his comrades with an oft-required health boost via his Sandvich, which, when consumed, is capable of healing him to full health. It can also be dropped to provide an instant 50% health boost to his teammates. However, if he isn't careful, an enemy may pick up the dropped Sandvich for a health boost of their own.

The Heavy is the face of Team Fortress 2. He appears prominently on box-art and promotional materials, starred in the very first Meet the Team video, and has appeared in all further videos to date.

The Heavy is voiced by Gary Schwartz.

Google.png
Google's little green android is now a well-known tech icon. While the green Android is the best known, there are at least three others in blue, red and yellow, colored to match the Google logo. Other than that, not much is known about the character, with no fictional biography or anything at this point.

Atari

 * Pong Paddles

Nintendo

 * Diskun

Sega

 * Alex Kidd
 * Opa-Opa
 * Joe Musashi
 * Segata Sanshiro

Sony

 * Polygon Man: Before he was the final boss of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Polygon Man was used to advertise the PlayStation in the United States. The character failed to catch on, and was ultimately retired.
 * Crash Bandicoot: Created by Naughty Dog to give the PlayStation a mascot, Crash Bandicoot was hugely successful. But, in order to work with Sony directly, Naughty Dog was forced to relinquish the franchise to Universal. A few games later, Universal sold Crash to Sierra Entertainment, who later passed the series to Activision. Probably because of how a different company gets custody of Crash every 3-5 years, Crash has become a bit of a troubled child over the years, not unlike Spyro.
 * Jak and Daxter
 * Ratchet and Clank: Arguably the best possible mascot for Sony's PlayStation brand, considering that they're the only ones from the PS2 era that have has new installments released consistently since their first game, even having their own feature film in production. While other mascots come and go, Ratchet and Clank remain, as Sony's longest-running franchise to be associated with the PlayStation brand overseas.
 * Sly Cooper
 * Kratos
 * Sackboy

Microsoft

 * Sonic the Hedgehog: From DidYouKnowGaming - "When Sega went bust, Microsoft wanted to buy Sega to make their way into the video game market. The deal never went through. This was because Bill Gates thought Sega didn't have enough power to stop Sony, so they decided to try and do it on their own."
 * Blinx: Similar to Sonic, Blinx was designed to compete directly with Mario and Crash Bandicoot. This failed due to poor gameplay, lack of originality, and general failure to showcase the best aspects of the Xbox.

Valve

 * Mr. Valve/The Valve Guy