Know what I miss about the "old days" of video gam

[Overbite]

Those really cool companies no one remembers! Nowadays you dont see too many new game companies come out with some game, everything is made by the same people now.

Back in the 8bit-16bit days (the ones i'll focus on) you had the main developers like Nintendo, Capcom, Sega, Konami, and the like, but you also had smaller companies that would release one game and then go away.

Anyone remember companies like Sage's Creation, Renovation, Treco, Technosoft, Technopop, Arena, Seismic, Toaplan, Tradewest, American Sammy, or GameTek?

I'm tempted to list Taito and Hudson, but they seem to still be around. Taito put out some stuff for the ngage, and hudson never stops with the bomberman.

What the crap do YOU think about all these lesser known companies?

[Kid Ice]

Going back a little farther in history than that, the 2600 had a number of companies that produced less than 10 games. Froggo, Data Age, Comma Vid, U.S Games, Telesys, Mythicon, and Appollo immediately come to mind.

Mind you this was back in the day when one person could make a game in a few months, and before 3rd parties had to pay licensing fees.

I still think, at least for the PS2, there is a good number of different companies that make games, but you don't see these "fly by night" operations anymore.

[DigitalSpace]

I could be wrong on any of these, but Data East, Vic Tokai, Imagineer, Motown Games, and Interplay come to mind.

[crashdummycow01]

well the thing is... if these little companies make good popular games... then they themselves become more well known and arent such a small unknown company anymore...

but if they have several games that dont sell well... and these games cost millions to make.. then the company doesnt live

[AB Positive]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Tradewest, Arena, GameTek and other 'small' companies were actually offshoots of larger companies looking for a way around the restrictive "5 game per year" license limit Nintendo enforced. Ultra was another one too, which was part of Konami if memory serves.


-AG

[Ed Oscuro]

Ultra Games was most certainly Konami's way of publishing more games for Nintendo systems in a year. Operation C was one of them.

As for "small companies that kicked ass but are gone now," some of the developers for the Spectrum come to mind (but I can't remember any names besides Mastertronic of folks who did coin-op conversions, like Kixx and Ocean...aaah, crud!), and I'm not sure what Virgin Interactive is doing these days.

[hydr0x]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Tradewest, Arena, GameTek and other 'small' companies were actually offshoots of larger companies looking for a way around the restrictive "5 game per year" license limit Nintendo enforced. Ultra was another one too, which was part of Konami if memory serves.

AG

i think you're right, there were also others, like Palcom, a sub of Konami Europe i think

but some companies listed here are not little at all, Taito???? i think you've never played an arcade... Hudson?? you know that they are doing the Mario Party games and other stuff? Virgin was sold to someone afaik but it was and i think still is quite big

but i don't think there aren't any small companies nowadays, i work at an electronics retailer and even i do see new games once in a while (that are often not reviewed at all) from devs i've NEVER heard about before and what about those small publishers like Xicat?

[spooie]

I know it's not 8-bit or 16-bit, but does anyone remember "Spider: The Videogame" from PSX? I recall the company behind it, Boss Games, only developed games for about a year or so before shutting down.

Hudsonsoft is still around though, but it seems a lot of the stuff we see from them lately, people don't realize they are doing. As stated above, they are doing the Mario Party games for Nintendo. They also did Pinobee, which was released by Activision on GBA and Konami on PSX. And they also did my favorite underrated GBA game of last year, Ninja Five-0, which Konami distributed.

[jdc]

As a collector of N64 stuff and an avid racing gamer, I really really miss Boss Game Studios.

*cries uncontrollably and hugs his copy of World Driver Championship*

[Milk]

I almost got a Playstation over Spider. It was late 1996, and I was deciding whether to ask for a PS or a Saturn for Christmas. There really weren't any "killer apps" for either at the time, and the N64 was beyond my grasp.

I chose Saturn. Sega, in reaction, decided to commit suicide. You now know who to blame.