Why Certain Titles Are Never Released?

[ColecoFan1981]

Is there any reason a certain title for a certain system doesn't get released despite being shown in certain catalogs that it might?

Examples:
COLECOVISION
005 (2414)
Side Trak (2418)
Spectar (2421)
Wizard of Wor (2421)
Rip Cord (2431)
Mr. Turtle (2432)
Skiing (2436)
Chess Challenger (2438)
Las Vegas (2439 - working title for Ken Uston Blackjack/Poker?)
Tunnels 'n Trolls (2441)
Horse Racing (2442)
Smurf Play 'n Learn (2444)
Smurfette's Birthday (2444)
Dracula (2608)
Sword & the Sorcerer (2619)
Tac/Scan (2635)
Wizard of Oz (2636)

There are many explanations abound as to their cancellations, including but not limited to:
1. Limited programming time.
2. Programming difficulties (on-screen sprite limitations, cartridge ROM space and other considerations).
3. Cost of programming the game.
4. Licensing negotiations.
5. Exceeding release quotas.

~Ben

[celerystalker]

I think you answered your own question.

[Steve W]

I think that games like Dracula were just too advanced for an 8-bit console in the early '80s to handle. Some just didn't need to be released at all - did game playing society in 1983 really need another Skiing game? I'd think that games like that, Chess Challenger, and Horse Racing were just being made to flesh out the machine's library rather than filling the needs of the customers. So the programmers were probably pulled off those titles and put to something higher priority.

I've never heard a thing about the people who programmed Colecovision games. I've heard all sorts of things about the camaraderie amongst the programming staff at companies like Atari and Mattel, but nothing about Coleco's people. I guess there was no centralized programming offices there, they just outsourced titles to whoever wanted to take them on. Which doesn't sound like very much fun. At places like Atari, everybody would hang out during lunchtime and play everybody else's games, offering suggestions and tweaks to make titles better. I guess Coleco was much more corporate and impersonal than that. That might also play into why some games didn't get released, feasibility studies and focus groups would dictate more of whether or not a game is worth putting out or not.

[Emperor Megas]

I'm still really salty about Woody Pop never being released for the SEGA Master System. It was on that poster that shipped with every SMS game, and I really loved those breakout type games so I was always on the lookout for that game.

It was released for the Game Gear though, years later. I'll have to track down a copy one day.

[celerystalker]

I'm still really salty about Woody Pop never being released for the SEGA Master System. It was on that poster that shipped with every SMS game, and I really loved those breakout type games so I was always on the lookout for that game.

It was released for the Game Gear though, years later. I'll have to track down a copy one day.

I have that one, which I bought entirely for its name. It's actually a pretty good Breakout clone.

[Guntz]

Well, in Nintendo's case, according to interviews with developers, the most common cause of game cancellations is politics. Sometimes the game is too expensive to be published, sometimes it conflicts with a specific release schedule, sometimes the market conditions aren't exactly right. Sometimes the game misses its intended release schedule due to problems and then never gets released.