If Ikegami Sued Nintendo Over Donkey Kong. . .

[ColecoFan1981]

I've gotten around to thinking: If Ikegami had sued Nintendo over the program code to Donkey Kong. . . then I wonder if Nintendo's other hired hands including SRD (Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda) and TOSE (Kid Icarus, Eggsplode/Short Order) could one of these days sue Nintendo as well for compensation?

I also wonder if Nintendo being sued by Ikegami over the arcade DK and DK Jr. coding, besides having dissected the original DK code for DK Jr., was because Nintendo didn't take a good look at the contract before the first DK was finished? It is apparent that buried deep in the contract was a clause that ultimately meant all source code for games programmed by Ikegami, regardless of title or publisher, had become property of Ikegami, and in the case of DK and DK Jr., it was a major blow to Nintendo. I compare this turn of events to the contract between Stax Records and Atlantic Records and what had happened to the (pre-1968) Stax catalog after Atlantic had been sold in 1967 to Warner Music Group.

~Ben

[Niku-Sama]

what brings this thinking on?

[JSoup]

what brings this thinking on?

It's fun to "what if" some topics.

[Tanooki]

What if colecofan didn't do a what if post? Would the forum implode? :P


No one but probably him and Nintendo (NCL) know the dirty details around how that lawsuit popped up, but given that was very early Nintendo gaming era days I'm sure they learned their lesson going forward quickly there after as I'd think they'd be smart enough to button up things Miyamoto has invented among others within their walls or it could become a feeding frenzy.

[ColecoFan1981]

What if colecofan didn't do a what if post? Would the forum implode? :P


No one but probably him and Nintendo (NCL) know the dirty details around how that lawsuit popped up, but given that was very early Nintendo gaming era days I'm sure they learned their lesson going forward quickly there after as I'd think they'd be smart enough to button up things Miyamoto has invented among others within their walls or it could become a feeding frenzy.
Here was how the story went: In 1980, Nintendo signed a clause with Ikegami that provided the latter with exclusive rights to build PCBs for Donkey Kong and other games, but suddenly Ikegami found itself in short supply when demand for Donkey Kong unexpectedly outstripped supply which led Nintendo to produce its own PCBs, thus violating the clause.

Nintendo then hired Iwasaki Engineering to reverse-engineer DK into DK Jr.

Link: http://www.mariowiki.com/Ikegami_Tsushinki

~Ben

[Graham Mitchell]

Wow, I didn't know Kid Icarus was done by Tose, but it makes sense. It doesn't look or sound like the traditional Gunpei Yokoi games.

See, this thread was useful to me.

[Tanooki]

Well that's some info not all. Interesting PCB construction rights were enough to pull that off as DK is owned by Nintendo. But I suppose you could back date a contract violation like that and go for if it the courts are fine with it and no statute of limitations for such things exists.

I think the real heart of it was reverse engineering the code to make DK Jr. SInce they would have had the technical info at hand, even in part, that would be a crime in the same way modern emulator makers can't go and used stolen console and handheld documentation schematics to make emulators. Some do, I know of at least a couple who did it, but if they got caught trying to ever sell their work they'd be hosed. So if they did take some info, even a line of info that guy did and used it to slap together DK Jr that likely is what really got Nintendo in trouble far more than making generic DK PCBs.

[ColecoFan1981]

I'm inclined to believe in regards to the original contract Nintendo had signed with Ikegami in 1980, which had also included RadarScope, Space Firebird and Sky Skipper, was likely signed by Hiroshi Yamauchi without having reading it first, like it was a gentleman's agreement. The 1990 settlement of the 1983 lawsuit over both DK and its sequel (as arcade machines) probably had Yamauchi feeling shocked over what he believed was Ikegami's betrayal of his trust.

~Ben

[eskobar]

Wow, I didn't know Kid Icarus was done by Tose, but it makes sense. It doesn't look or sound like the traditional Gunpei Yokoi games.

See, this thread was useful to me.

LOL, maybe half of the games released on the Famicom were programmed by TOSE, those guys were impressive. Loved City Connection published by Jaleco :evil laugh: