Unlicensed to Kill – Part 1

Hey Replayers

If you’re reading this you’re are no doubt familiar with the grey rectangles we slot into and out of our consoles day in and day out. Blow the contacts out… Q-Tips and Rubbing Alcohol. Good times and Great Oldies.

You might even be somewhat familiar with those odd black cartridges that existed for a little while. Yes? No? Did you know there were more than just the black ones? Let’s break them down into a few different categories on this episode of Replay the Past: History.

Tengen

The most popular of all the unlicensed game companies was Tengen. Tengen was the console division of Atari Games. It was so popular and had enough pull with the VG audiences that it actually led Nintendo to sue for copyright infringement. Atari didn’t think that Nintendo’s strict licensing contract was fair. And maybe it wasn’t. The FTC didn’t really think so. Requiring preorders of 10,000 units, maximum of five games a year, and no say in advertising or how many units you were allowed to buy were just a few of the requirements. And all for access to the 10NES chip that tells the console that what was just inserted is an official licensed game.

Atari reversed engineered the 10NES chip to create their own Rabbit chip as a workaround to the NES lockout. Combined with fraudulently obtained filings to the Copyright Office, Atari’s workaround functioned way better than simply overloading the 10NES with a voltage spike rendering it inoperable while the game was loaded. After successfully being sued by Nintendo, Atari would release games through other manufactures rather than going straight to Nintendo while still retaining the developer credit.

Atari released 25 games for the NES under the Tengen name. Rather than going grey, they chose to mimic the style of the original Atari cartridges.

The word Atari comes from the classic board game, Go. It’s a term that means “nearly surrounded” and was very appropriate for their upright cabinets. Tengen also comes from the game Go and is a reference to the center of the board otherwise known as “The origin of heaven”. Bold, Atari. Very bold.

— to be continued —