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Thread: The Bad Blood Between Nintendo and Ikegami

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    Cherry (Level 1)
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    Default The Bad Blood Between Nintendo and Ikegami

    I'm wondering if the bad blood between Nintendo and its former developer-for-hire, Ikegami Tsushinki, was the reason Nintendo wasn't allowed to use the arcade Donkey Kong's program code? The lawsuit began in 1983 (after the release of Donkey Kong, Jr.) and finally ended in 1990. Certainly not all was well in this relationship.

    I re-iterate: Do you think Nintendo was the real loser here?

    If that is the case, then Ikegami permanently (?) owns the whole arcade DK (and DK, Jr.) program code, and thus Nintendo is screwed out of ever using it again, correct (as a result of the settlement)?

    Ikegami also developed program codes for arcade games published by other companies, like Sega's Congo Bongo. Could that mean Ikegami could ultimately screw the publishers of their money since they never credited Ikegami with development?

    ~Ben
    Last edited by ColecoFan1981; 01-25-2013 at 06:15 PM.

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    Cherry (Level 1) Sysop's Avatar
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    As the terms of the settlement have never been revealed, who knows if Nintendo ended up with the rights to the original code or not. Besides, I believe the only reason why Ikegami started the lawsuit in the first place was because Donkey Kong Jr. was created without them being consulted with. An example of another title which Ikegami developed is Zaxxon which had sequels made for it and the original arcade version can be found on the Wii Virtual Console. Back onto Donkey Kong, you can find the original version of Donkey Kong (albeit hidden) within Donkey Kong 64.

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    Kirby (Level 13) Leo_A's Avatar
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    That's a fair bit away from being 100% accurate according to DK experts which suggest it isn't an emulation or a port of the arcade code but is instead a recreation done internally at Rare. And since the ownership dispute was just about source code and not thing's like the game concept, it doesn't prove the ownership of the code today even though I don't see why Nintendo wouldn't of got it when everything was said and done when they settled. It happened with other lawsuits he initiated over disputed code ownership that have since been rereleased years later.

    So I doubt the lawsuit settlement didn't include the transfer of all legal rights to the code to Nintendo in exchange for monetary compensation.
    Last edited by Leo_A; 01-29-2013 at 04:04 AM.

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    Nintendos refusal to admit they have a coin op past extends beyond just donkey kong. The vs system versions of almost all their early nes games are superior, or at least drastically different than their console counterparts. Yet, whenever Nintendo reissues those games they use the cruddy home versions.

    I'm sure there are many people who would love to try vs super Mario bros. if they knew it existed. Vs ice climber and vs excite bike basically make the nes versions obsolete when you play them. Yet, Nintendo continues to keep them all hoarded in the vault. Thank god for the Internet and USB EPROM burners.

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    Cherry (Level 1)
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    A similar case can be applied to Midway creating Ms. Pac-Man and other Pac-Man sequels without Namco's permission.

    It started when GCC programmers made a Pac-Man conversion kit under the primordial name Crazy Otto, development of which occurred after GCC and Atari had settled a lawsuit over a Missile Command conversion kit called Super Missile Attack. Part of the settlement meant GCC could not sell conversion kits without consent from the original manufacturer. But rather than completely shelve Crazy Otto, the programmers presented the game to Midway, which came up with several renames prior to Ms. Pac-Man.

    Midway waited impatiently over Namco's next Pac-Man sequel that ultimately became Super Pac-Man. Instead, they reverse-engineered the Pac-Man code to turn it into Ms. Pac-Man. The same thing was done for Pac-Man Plus, Baby Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man and, bizarrely, Professor Pac-Man, which ultimately had terminated the relationship between Midway and Namco and ultimately both Midway and GCC ended up having to sell their rights to the Pac-Man series back to Namco.

    ~Ben
    Last edited by ColecoFan1981; 09-11-2015 at 04:32 AM.

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