Tengen: Atari Games vs. Nintendo

[@GamingHistorian]

This is, personally, my favorite video I have ever done. It took about a month to make, but it was worth it. Hope you enjoy!

[@rabidduck22]

***** 26 min! i can see why that would take a month. great vid btw

[@reggie3819]

***** Your story telling ability is well thought out and written. Please release more content like this!

[@Faneezy]

***** Easily one of your best Norm!

[@caseymiles7486]

***** Excellent video! I knew some of this story, but not some of the finer points. I really appreciate the work you put into these videos, so little of gaming history is well documented.

[@jwt4810]

***** I think this your best video so far, & that's saying a lot because all of your content is well produced. You obviously had to do a great deal of research to obtain this amount information on the subject. It's also presented extremely well. I knew some of the Tegen history & lawsuits, but not nearly as much as I thought. I agree the battle between Nintendo & Atari/Tegen helped to shape the video game industry. Thanks for bringing this story to light.

[@LGR]

This video is just top-notch!

[@raafmaat]

Lazy Game Reviews ahh man, cool to see you here! :)

[@mrcoolguy32]

Lazy Game Reviews hello :)

[@Exarian]

Lazy Game Reviews ah man I just watched your retrospective on Dell computers, then soon as I was done I saw this thing uploaded.

[@RiasGremoryIsLife]

Thanks for bringing me here, LGR!

[@sergio7D]

Lazy Game Reviews I read your message with your voice :D

[@neoasura]

Crazy, I remember renting these Tengen games at the video store many times in the late 80s. I just figured they were trying to be cool looking with the black cartridges. I didn't know anything as a kid at the time.

[@at1212b]

Yea they had a different feel too. More authentic and 'dark'.

[@WrestlingfansareCLOWNS]

i knew what was going on...i knew about it all along

[@AltCTRLF8]

@@WrestlingfansareCLOWNS i was the one who told you about it.

[@hightidekraken]

@@WrestlingfansareCLOWNS for sure man

[@WrestlingfansareCLOWNS]

@@AltCTRLF8 you told me about it but i already knew bro...i already knew

[@851852093114208513]

They should have called their own chip the 10gen

[@mechanicalruby]

👍

[@jwil4286]

Eyyy I see what you did there

[@thelaxsoviet5922]

that was kinda painful

[@Kara_Kay_Eschel]

@@moose_in_disguise3288 It gave me Capricorn.

[@KrazyProductions]

Would be kinda obvious than naming it a code name

[@wondermomo282]

Well done Norman. As you know, I worked at both Nintendo and Atari Games during many of the years this epic battle took place. Listening to your recount of the events had me feel like it happened yesterday. I’m glad that you presented Hide not only as a Nintendo “villain”, but as someone brave enough to challenge the stranglehold that Nintendo had on the console industry. What he did took major cajones. At the time, I personally questioned the judgment of taking on Nintendo. I knew what Howard Lincoln was capable of. Events like this have shaped the industry into what it is today. The history of this great industry has to be documented accurately. It’s not just fun and games. As you know, several popular books are littered with inaccuracies and omissions over events and people. You’re right about Tetris being a story for another time. I look forward to that one. And last but not least, I am equally impressed (like other viewers) in the production quality of this video. Once I started watching, I got a cup of coffee and buckled in through its entirety. I’ve gone back to look at certain pictures, read the newspaper clippings, hanging on your every word. Your voice over's, tone and timing has the precision of Ken Burns. But delivered with your own style. Excellent work Norman.

[@GamingHistorian]

Jerry Momoda Thanks so much, Jerry. After all my research / readings, I thought Nakajima was very bold for what he did, and a good leader.

[@Watcher3223]

Jerry Momoda _"I knew what Howard Lincoln was capable of."_ Indeed, considering how Mr. Lincoln helped Nintendo with their first rather major legal challenge: Music Corporation of America. And that is another great story that I wonder if the Gaming Historian has covered... UPDATE: Yep, he did! "Donkey Kong" and Universal vs. Nintendo.

[@TheShadow9380]

What did you do in both company's?

[@rdubayoo]

+Jerry Momoda Nintendo certainly wasn't nice to its third-party developers but Atari should have known better than to break the law in order to reverse-engineer the Code 10 chip. They had some good arguments on their side, but they ultimately compromised their position by their actions.

[@Watcher3223]

rdubayoo And the biggest mistake Atari made in their effort to defeat 10NES was getting patent information about it from the Federal Government under false pretenses. Obviously, the judge would not be amused with Atari.

[@boodro2122]

Judge "You guys will not interfere with each others customers" Nintendo & Atari "But we want to" Judge "Well, ok"

[@UnethicalVoxel]

Ace Attorney judge moment

[@steinmaniac7920]

@@UnethicalVoxel I love that senile, old weirdo.

[@Dowlphin]

@@steinmaniac7920 I despise him with a vengeance because I was personally on the receiving end of two of that caliber. Created years of frustration and rage and vast monetary losses and then an insider told me that stuff is happening every day. www.deviantart.com/dowlphin/art/Judge-This-450967861

[@danek_hren]

Small brain moment

[@raafmaat]

i wanted to find out what your post was about, finally at 18:00 it is explained in the video :)

[@Zeroroute]

Had no clue that's where the name "Namco" came from

[@WebVManReturns]

Namco isn't even their original company name. It was NAMCOT.

[@saysoun752]

@@WebVManReturns No it wasn't. It was always Namco but they used both Namco and Namcot to distinguish arcade games and console games. Namco stands for Nakamura Manufacturing Company and as you can see, there's no "t" on the actual name of the company. Taken from Wikipedia. Namco's first original video game was Gee Bee (1978).[9] It was Pac-Man (1980), however, that would become definitive of Namco's legacy, going on to become a fixture in popular culture.[10] Galaga (1981), a follow-up to Galaxian, was one of the most successful sequels of the era.[11] Dig Dug (1982), Xevious (1982), and Pole Position (1982) continued Namco's success in establishing iconic franchises during the Golden Age. During this period, Namco published video games for home consoles and personal computer under the Namcot brand name.[

[@jlindsey241]

I did not know that either!!!!

[@robw5741]

@@saysoun752 3:54 he says otherwise

[@user-ql2re2es9y]

@@WebVManReturns Namcot is Namcotek (Namco Technologies). Namco and Namcot is the same...

[@SenelsChannel]

R.I.P. Masaya Nakamura December 24, 1925 - January 22, 2017

[@fighterck6241]

RIP...

[@rorymadonald439]

Rest In Peace masaya

[@leastattached103]

man I'm gonna cry 😞

[@AllGamingStarred]

RIP

[@finngray1476]

Rip

[@altrock86]

After burner by tengen. A sega game made by atari on nintendo crazy.

[@timandshannon03]

I want to play it now! I didn't even know it existed!

[@corrosyon]

And Shinobi.

[@figment1988]

Aside from After Burner, there was Shinobi, Fantasy Zone and Alien Syndrome (which unlike the master system port, the NES port had 2 player co-op gameplay like the arcade game)

[@ricky-sanchez]

@@figment1988 Looks like tengen was in a world of their own, stealing from sega..... The whole point of licensing is to appropriate licenses. Either sounds like 2+2, or legalese.

[@edwarddeguzman3258]

There is also a port of Altered Beast for the Famicom out there

[@timcrouch2415]

There is another extremely important lawsuit in the video game industry that I think would make a great video: Capcom vs. Data East, over Data East's "Fighter's History" game. It is quickly being forgotten, so it may be hard to dig up info on it. But it essentially provided the precedent that video games include scenes a faire, which lead to the video game industry being able to almost copy other games exactly, provided they changed protectable names.

[@RawrX32009]

Based Data East, love those guys :3

[@bageltoo]

I love how unbiased your content is. It's just the simple story with only the facts

[@Bladeslingersgamepreserve]

I always heard a story that Rare managed to beat the lockout chip fair and square but rather than produce unliscenced games, they instead used their findings to just create an NES dev kit and then submitted the games to Nintendo for approval. Nintendo gave them freedom to produce as many games as they wanted to, either because they were impressed or because they feared Rare would share their secrets with the world.

[@Rabbitlord108]

That's actually legitimately interesting.

[@joshnickerson83]

But then again, Rare was a developer, not a publisher, so there really was no limit on how many games they could work on. They were also worked with Nintendo early on, Rare developed Slalom for them, so they already had dev kits early on.

[@TheNuje]

I don't know if they ever defeated the lockout chip, as the devkit they made from reverse engineering was for the original Nintendo Family Computer (apparently modifying a RAM adapter board from the system to allow them to inject their own code). Nintendo were simply confident that the Family Computer wasn't possible to reverse-engineer on its own, and were impressed when Rare had shown them their findings. As a result, they brought Rare on-board to make games.

[@DrHotelMario]

This story would make a damn good movie. This is some Wallstreet level shit lol

[@bradnimbus4836]

I wish I could express how impressed I am with your production value. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this could easily stand along side any biography I've seen in years. You have a real talent homie! You can have all of my likes.

[@rasr666]

nintendo

[@Junedude433]

jaden salazar How is that a valid response?

[@rasr666]

from my yes Junedude433

[@rasr666]

ntc *****

[@rasr666]

;)*****

[@hurdyb1]

I have been a gamer for almost 35 years of my soon to be 40 year old life. This video was sooooooo informative. Great job!

[@stuffsonanimation4262]

*TRU GAMR*

[@lucasoheyze4597]

Imagine how much more information you would have if you had read books instead.

[@hurdyb1]

@Lucas O'heyze - Try again. I'm always reading magazines and books. Been reading since i was five to now. Probably have read more than you and I'm sure much more educated than you as well as more traveled. Try again cause it seems like you have low self esteem and need a life.

[@WakanaGojo86]

​@@lucasoheyze4597imagine being an ass hole for no reason

[@ChrisLeeW00]

Nintendo having a problem with supplying? Can't make enough products to meet demand? Now where have I heard that before...

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

Before everyone had a problem with suply-demand, now its just that nintendo

[@CartoonHangout]

Dang, that should be turned into a movie.

[@AdmiralBison]

it is. The book 'Console Wars' chronicles the video games in the early 90s in particular Sega vs Nintendo, but the book also chronicles what was in the video as well. It's coming as a documentary and film coming soon......the film being done by Sony :\ I strongly suggest you get the book, I definitely see things different now compared to how I saw Sega and Nintendo when I was little kid.

[@CartoonHangout]

Duane Locsin I'll definitely add it to my wishlist of things I can't afford right now.

[@diggy5884]

yes

[@EbenezerScroogeMcDuck]

don't forget cameos of video games on screen like in The Wizard xD

[@dariohc6898]

With sex scenes

[@erichhudson2090]

This is one of the best documentaries I've seen. Excellent explanations from every point of view. Legal, commercial, customer, etc. We'll done!

[@Matthewsavant]

In the days of “Hey KZbin, it’s your boy” Your delivery and tone is refreshing and professional. It’s nice to actually enjoy watching stuff like this again while I learn about the stuff I love

[@jamesbevan4479]

This rings so true, even now 5 years later. "Hey guys it's ya boi (insert Chad youtuber here)"

[@jayhawker03]

It's odd how Nintendo took things so seriously with the seal of quality yet shows like Angry Video Game Nerd have tons of content on the bad apples in the library.

[@locke103]

quality control was dubious, suffice to say.

[@axiorsomethin130]

Mackenzie McIntyre all of them

[@DuelmasterX3]

@@axiorsomethin130 Not all of them. Most of the Bible Games sure weren't licensed. Not to mention games like Menace Beach, Raid 2020, Secret Scout, Little Red Hood, etc weren't licensed as well.

[@axiorsomethin130]

SmugBob-Omb cool

[@TobyCowles]

According to the NES encyclopedia the seal of quality basically just meant that the game's code was not clearly broken, that the game was family friendly, and that the company had bought atleast 10,000 genuine cartridges which could not be returned if they didn't sell, which assured that the publisher was willing to put real money behind the game

[@Changetheling]

Tetris (Tengen) is still the superior NES version. Co-op modes, the arcade music and colours... Facts.

[@Savannah_Simpson]

You say that as though you are the first person to ever make that observation. It’s not something anyone disputes.

[@pokehybridtrainer]

I mean... The arcade ports are pretty damn solid, especially for the time.

[@DarkKent234]

@@Savannah_Simpson did you stretch before that reach?

[@noteveryoneiscutout]

easily the best tetris i've ever played

[@notaidan405]

I think the Nintendo version is better but the Tengen version is pretty good

[@stuporspoon]

I doubt anyone has the answer for me, but I'll throw it out into the cosmos: When the attorneys concocted the scheme to obtain the chip's copyrighted blueprint, they knew that the chip had to be the subject of a lawsuit that they had a claim in in order for that particular document to become available to them. Why did they choose to lie and say that they were defendants against Nintendo in a non-existent lawsuit? It just confused me because it sounds like they could have gotten it without getting themselves into trouble: File the lawsuit, obtain the blueprint in discovery or whatever, and go from there. Hell, apparently, they could have done both of those things on the same day, since the copyright office was willing to take people at face value instead of independently verifying their claims. Why didn't they take this route? Were they worried about being blocked or going through protracted delay during discovery? Did Atari's lawyers think that the company did not have a valid claim to the material?

[@louisantonio2462]

While your idea makes sense, I believe this is because Atari's lawyers did not want to draw any attention from Nintendo preemptively and wanted to gain the blueprints first and develop the Rabbit chip before actively pursuing their lawsuit. Besides, if they were to look at the blueprints through discovery, surely it would be more likely for Atari to be filed a preminilary injunction if they were to use the materials during their trial period. Furthermore, Nintendo would only find out about the fradulent lawsuit a bit later, knowing that it would become a sore spot for them.

[@richard5X5]

Technically speaking if you have a case against someone you are supposed to have enough evidence against them before discovery. If your entire case rests on finding something in discovery, your lawsuit should be thrown out because it wasn't worth having to begin with. That's how it's supposed to go anyway. Finding additional info is what discovery is for, but the keyword being additional, not crucial to having a case to begin with. It's the reason the GOP is in trouble across the US right now for their frivilous election cases. Most of these people will lose, or have their licenses suspended because of this. Rightfully so just based on how the law process is supposed to work.

[@theyeeter5171]

Atari:"Hey, can i want a Piraty Chip please?" Copyright:"OK" Nintendo:"I CALL THE POLICE" SEGA:"HE STOLE MY GAMES TO NINTENDO!"

[@jesseanderson7502]

I love this video. While my son (6), who found your history documentaries on Kids KZbin, showed me the channel, I was the one who ultimately fell in love with it (while he will likely have the same love as he grows in historical understanding.) My friend gave me a copy of Rolling Thunder for my birthday (Tengen edition), and my son began to ask me "Why does this look different?" Lo-and-behold, you made a documentary. This was very well done, and I very much appreciate the work you do. It not only has brought my son and I closer together, but it has explained the questions I had as a child about the games I would find in the rental shop. I love your commitment to your craft. This definitely is one of the best, and one of my favorite historical vignettes on corporate titans whose creations inadvertently structured my youth.

[@Albert-lj5jb]

I like how Atari's plan to loosen Nintendo's stranglehold of the industry at the time, was for their own benefit, but in actuality really ended up benefiting SEGA much more and allowed the Mega Drive/Genesis to gain a massive stake in the industry. I'm sure Sony benefited from this as well later on, but really, that whole deal with the PlayStation ever becoming a thing was of Nintendo's own doing, shooting themselves in the foot, in a mad scramble to come up with something to compete with the SEGA Mega CD. Both situations were shit for Nintendo, but at least (us) the consumers won.

[@AltairEgo1]

Nintendo would have in the longrun lost on that deal. The bulk of the profits for IPs would have been siphoned to Sony. Ultimately Nintendo would no longer be able to develop consoles under the deal, as their funds for development would be in Sony's hands. The result would, in the end, be a duopoly between Sony and Microsoft, if Sega even survived in that scenario (doubtful). The consumers did end up winning, because we got a choice between Sony, Nintendo, for a time Sega, and then Microsoft, rather than an empire simply owned by two gigantic megaconglomerates competing for who can make the most powerful machine. Nintendo sacrificed third party support for autonomy, and for a time, lost out to Sony. In the longrun they gained huge profit margins with their handheld division, and made a killing on Wii. Currently they're the market leader with Switch. I imagine if they did take that deal, Nintendo would have shrunk to a smalltime developer, existing as a third party. I don't see them making hardware in that timeline. They definitely did shoot themselves in the foot with Phillips CD though. That was a terrible idea.

[@RippahRooJizah]

Kinda funny to think that Nintendo technically invented timed exclusivity for video games

[@Keithustus]

Did they? Or did Magnavox? Or Atari? Or for Colecovision?

[@AltairEgo1]

​@@KeithustusNintendo was the start of all evils in the industry, remember that. They're the boogeyman

[@driptrat]

I can understand Nintendo's desire to control the content on their machine. But with something like the NES that would be like a manufacturer making demands on what is written on the paper they print. They have the right to do it, and Tengen is in the wrong for using the patent office to steal Nintendo's technology. But I can't help feel after watching this that Nintendo's practices created the environment for Sega to thrive in. Had Nintendo been more reserved in it's policies, plumber and hedgehog may never had gone to war. Well made documentary folks.

[@lupvirga]

David Hopkins while i agree, the licensing agreement is REALLY bad. It's about as bad as the Nintendo Partners Program for KZbinrs.

[@gunsmithbasic]

Nintendo wanted to stop the total freedom that destroyed Atari. The crash mostly happened because of a lack of standards, and a general consumer perception that the main console company represented all the software on it. By the standards of today, the control over software that Nintendo did would be considered standard. The only part of their agreement that is unfair by today's standards was stopping third parties from developing for other consoles.

[@TheBrainScratcher]

gunsmithbasic yes, the average nes game quality is so high.. that totally worked... keep believing fairy tales.

[@nathenhutchison6182]

+gunsmithbasic This sentiment gets stated a lot, but I don't believe that it was the freedom that destroyed Atari. It wasn't poor-quality, third-party games that brought Atari down. It was the poor-quality games that were produced BY ATARI. What are the two games that most often get mentioned in connection with the video game crash? Pac-Man and E.T. Those weren't third-party games. They were developed by Atari. When you have sold 10 million Atari consoles and you decide to produce 12 million cartridges under the assumption that one cartridge will be sold for EVERY console in existence and that the very existence of the game will drive the sale of an additional 2 million consoles (20% of total console sales to date) and then you rush the actual game through development in a few weeks so that you can have it out in time for Christmas...........stuff like that is what killed Atari. Not poor-quality, third-party games. I'm no business executive. I don't know a lick about running a business. But even I know enough to know that is just plain idiocy. The consumer is smart enough to know the difference between a crap game put out by a third-rate developer and what should be a quality game put out by the console developer themselves or a reputable developer. But when the console developer themselves start putting out crappy games under the assumption that the consumer will buy anything that they produce, that is what kills companies.

[@GiordanDiodato]

+Nathan Hutchinson Uh... did someone forget the fact the Colecovision had an add-on that played Atari 2600 games?

[@kurtg5405]

I always shed a tear when someone passes away in your stories :'( Keep up the good work, your channel is seriously one of the very best in KZbin or anywhere really. Even your earlier vids with much smaller budgets still tell a story in such an immense way, it's not hard to see why you've endured for so many years. :)

[@ConnerTheWaffle]

Absolutely fantastic, so much information! Great job Norm, it's obvious how many hours and parts of your soul went into this ^_^

[@rahimj7701]

Conners the best

[@Filip_salamaj]

Lol

[@MustangDrifter]

Very professional! When using somebody else to do the voiceover on quotes, it really felt like a true documentary style video; something that I would watch on PBS. The month's effort really showed in this video, great job! BTW, I love watching PBS documentaries so keep those videos coming!

[@GamingHistorian]

MustangDrifter Thanks! I also love PBS documentaries, they are a big influence (clearly)

[@Swonke]

***** I've been watching a PBS documentary on WW2. The parallels in style of this video and those are awesome. Great work, really good video.

[@RielMatildaRoman]

***** thank you for making these they are not many channels that go deep into history keep up the nice work :)

[@holdmybeer]

Rimone Media I hope you have your playlist on "public" cause I'm definitely checking it out.

[@gluserty]

MustangDrifter Very true; while I was watching & listening, I was thinking, "PBS".

[@TheEmery223]

No matter how many of Norman's videos I really, really like and thoroughly enjoy, I always find myself gravitating back to this one, without fail. Definitely my absolute favorite. It's a hell of a case study on Nintendo's prior business practices and Tengen's ingenuity for trying to circumvent them. Such an engrossing and masterfully crafted video on a crucial turning point of what would become the gaming industry as we now know it. *chef kiss*

[@senseihEnRY16]

wow, this is actually a very interesting story and you tell it professionally. i would love to see a movie based on this event

[@starilie]

How is this not a movie or a mini-series?? It's a great story

[@Marco-wp9kw]

don't worry, it's too brilliant to not be made into a major motion picture within the next 20 years.

[@SmaMan]

In the early days of talks over the Tetris movie (that's now going to be a trilogy about who knows what) one of the ideas that gained traction was making a docu-drama, similar in style to "The Social Network," about the creation of the game, and how its creator fought for nearly decades to actually get profit on the concept (tying into a bit of the Tetris drama that Norman brought up). They could just as easily do that here!

[@romerorosewood5846]

starilie your cute

[@sirMAXX77]

Yeah, this would make a great movie, though Nintendo would probably not want this kind of movie made since it would put them in a pretty negative light.

[@Cosmalano]

Romero Rosewood such a pointless comment

[@BeeHatGuy]

I see that everyone defends Atari here, but it's pretty obvious that what they did was illegal as hell.

[@ShaDisNX255]

People hate Nintendo for being this strict at the time (and still are somewhat tbh) but what they don't remember is that the video game market had just crashed! If Atari had won, it would have prompted a whole other video game crash possibly. They say that the more games there are, the better for consumers. But that's exactly the same mind set they had with the crash of 83. The video game industry would probably not have survived another crash after just emerging from another one.

[@solarstrike33]

Weird. I'm seeing a lot of pro-Nintendo comments in this section.

[@Kylora2112]

I mean, Nintendo is why there is still a video game market in the US. And the NES has one of the better classic:trash ratios of any console.

[@kristophertower3476]

trolling the patent office to get your hands on someone elses property seems pretty unethical to me......but then again business is business

[@tsaotsaotherebel]

I agree. Nintendo was unaffordable as hell to. Now that I know they had monoplisitic practices, it makes sense.

[@TheRealLazerBlazer22]

I'm genuinely very sad over Hideyuki Nakajima's death. While some of his practices aren't exactly ethical, what he strove to do, and the people he strove to protect, and how he didn't give up and got to the top is downright inspirational. Live On Hide. Live On.

[@alexandreb.1101]

@Orkhiss if anything, Nintendo trying to forcefully bulld a monopoly was unethical

[@BendApparatus]

@Orkhiss flat out lying to obtain the 10 program from copyright... That's pretty much it. Obtaining information from the other guy with ulterior motives was fair game...

[@mrborif4245]

@@BendApparatus fair game isn’t always ethical lmao, I totally agree with what he was doing though

[@BendApparatus]

@@mrborif4245 so basically you agree...lol

[@mrborif4245]

@@BendApparatus yeah essentially

[@PeteSkerritt]

This work was fantastic. Even though I had a pretty solid understanding of Tengen v. Nintendo, I learned a lot by watching this video... and your research shines here. The stories within the story are woven together really well. As someone who has gained much of his knowledge of the video game industry mostly through experience, that knowledge is enriched through pieces like this one.

[@Gdmeerleer]

thanks

[@anneanne6001]

comment tu vas

[@stevenhayes4292]

Wow just incredible content quality. Your voice flows so smoothly with the information and just kept me wanting to hear more and more and learn more and more. Amazing job!

[@anthonytomb8857]

they should make this story into a movie

[@julianswayze5961]

That would be awesome.

[@L1701]

Considering I have heard about a movie in the works about the Console Wars, this would be an interesting piece of video game history to see on the screen.

[@Ux7hfs9Fco4fkaakggaa]

Gaming Historian is a national treasure. Thank you for the stellar work. We greatly appreciate it!

[@jrmj]

This was unexpectedly FASCINATING. I remember the black cartridges from my youth but never gave them much consideration since. Thanks for putting this together. You did an excellent job!

[@MissAshley42]

This and the story of Tetris are my two favorite bits of video game history. I never get tired of hearing about them.

[@dcgitz]

Face it, this could be one of the best ideas for a movie. Maybe even better than Pixels (no offense to those who enjoyed the movie).

[@patrickmcdaniel2048]

I never knew about any of this. I've always seen the tengen games for NES but I never gave them much thought because they always had those funny looking cartridges. I always felt like the funky cartridge was offputting and, while I do still have many titles for my old NES, I don't have any from tengen. Cool story

[@jaradipra]

i feel like im watching discovery channel / Nat Geo documentary film. Production quality of this video is very good. You've done a wonderful job dude!

[@TR-cp1fo]

Best video game channel on youtube. Super informative

[@liengandriod55]

True

[@jannebengtsson7338]

Wow. I had no idea that they basically we're the Robin hood of console gaming. Wish I had known this back in the 90s. Thank you for as super interesting video!

[@TheDumontShow]

***** this is one of the best videos you ever done. It was so informative and in depth. I can tell you had a great time doing this one. So well made and researched. I love what you do. I am gonna put up a KZbin channel myself and this vid has inspired me to carry on my plan. Don't let anybody stop your passion. Keep it rocking, homie

[@GamingHistorian]

Dickens Dumont Thanks! Good luck with your channel. I remember starting mine like it was yesterday.

[@emmanuelkumi8299]

I agree with Dickens Dumont

[@TheDumontShow]

***** , thank you norm. i will strive to being the same quality you bring to yours

[@chibi25]

This is a game changer in you video quality. Way to go these look completely professional and something I'd expect to find on PBS or some other documentary channel.

[@PrankZabba]

Remember when A&E used to have this kind of quality content?

[@cheetahjab]

pepperidge farms remembers.. :P

[@evacody1249]

Yup. History Channel to.

[@GRINGOf10]

Yes, now it’s my 600lb life and crocodile hunters on crack.

[@Doommaster1994]

Great work, Norman! Here's a couple things you may have wanted to add to the video. One thing is that the NES used 6502 assembly programming, which I heard was very hard compared to the Master System's Z80 and the Genesis's 68000 programming. Also, American/European game developers apparently had no support/documentation from Nintendo. Maybe you can cover this in another video. I really enjoyed this video though. Very informative, and a lot of stuff I didn't know about. Thanks!

[@KiljiArslan]

This could make a great movie.

[@markhunt9643]

Atari: Better deal? We are Atari, we pretty much created the video game industry Nintendo: Wasn't it a game on your systems that caused the crash in the first place? Sega and other gaming companies: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@sirnubless]

......

[@DrGreenThumbNZL]

Stfu newb

[@LUCKO2022]

1) That was a different Atari, to start with. That Atari was under the management of Warner Communications being run by Ray Kassar. Atari Games was the result of Atari being split into 2 and both sold off (well actually 3, Warner retained the telecomunications part of Atari). 2) ET DID NOT CRASH THE INDUSTRY. It goes deeper than just 1 game. The problem was Atari didn't have control on who makes games for the 2600. So everyone and their dog started to make games for it and resulted in allot of shitty games getting out there. That is what caused the market to crash, not just 1 game.

[@windowsme2327]

Nec:bup bup bup Sega:ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[@nicholastosoni707]

@@LUCKO2022 It was also that Sears, Radio Shack, etc. had their own game consoles which were compatible with Atari. Result: A hot mess for consumers--nobody knew exactly _what_ to buy. I think Colecovision and Intellivision were also Atari-friendly, adding to the headache. Correct me if I'm wrong and don't quote me on it.

[@misterbennnn]

I recently started watching every episode of The Gaming Historian to try to find the first long-form, documentary style episode. This was it, and it was great. It was also very interesting to see the AVGN inspiration slowly drop in lieu of Norm's personal, professional style, as well as watch the audio/video equipment get progressively better. Fantastic video, fantastic channel, and I'm going to keep working my way up to the present.

[@efisherspfld]

This video is serendipitous for me in a way... just earlier today I was watching a video from Game Sack about arcade to console ports. They covered fantasy zone by tengen. I became curious about the company and looked for more videos about them. I found 2. Both were less than 10 minutes long and not quite informative. I took a nap, and by the time I woke up, I had a notification on my phone that you had just uploaded this video! Talk about timing... Great video and series over all! :)

[@GamingHistorian]

Eric Fisher Awesome! It is the circle of retro gaming.

[@ashfury]

I'm glad we have guys like Gaming Historian and Game Sack who cover topics that are truly interesting. AVGN is pretty shallow in comparison.

[@pyrotek85]

ashfury I think AVGN is good, but I think it's always been more about the comedy. His videos are usually very light on the history side of things. So I wouldn't say a direct comparison is fair.

[@arthurlarrubia]

ashfury AVGN is more like a sketchy/ comedy/ trash/ horror show.

[@davidcoaker274]

Eric Fisher kinda like what happened with me the fallout lore series

[@gamerex9378]

23:44 my goodness, I want that snes storage center.

[@forkyfork]

Right? Look how handy it is!

[@THEGREATMAX]

I remember I had a Tengen version of Ms Pacman on NES that let 2 players play AT THE SAME TIME and had a turbo speed/boost button and if Pac-man and Ms Pac-man hit eachother, they would bounce off eachother and fly to opposite sides of the screen It was amazing

[@metalmat3651]

I remember renting those odd looking Tengen games back in the day, I really liked RBI Baseball and Klax

[@paulavarela9447]

This episode is awesome. Your videos are amazing and so well done...It is a relief to watch such damn good content on KZbin this days. Please keep on going and do not lower your standards!!

[@walterchapman2094]

Always wished Atari Games had supported their other half at Atari Corps. when the 7800 was released. I can understand releasing games for the popular NES but they ignored the SMS and 7800 till late in the systems life span. The 7800 could have used a quality 3rd party developer such as Tengen and there really wouldnt have been much competition.

[@OtakuUnitedStudio]

Tengen would technically be a 2nd party developer if they had gone that route.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

Atari Games Corp [arcade and the Tengen consumer brand] and Tramiel's Atari Corp [computers and consoles] didn't get along originally. Their mutual hatred of Nintendo and Warner CEO Steve Ross' coaxing behind the scenes led to their later alliance of sorts. But yes, the 7800 needed Atari Games' library and didn't get it. The 7800 was more powerful than the NES. The recent homebrew game "Rikki & Vikki" proves it.

[@GamingDelight]

Jeremy Holloway Nevertheless, the 7800 was going nowhere, falling behind Nintendo and barely staying neck and neck with Sega in North America. Releasing the games for the Atari 7800 would only make things worse. Only the NES was gaining ground.

[@TomHPMc]

This is great, man, very informative and of a stellar quality. It's clear a lot of work went into this. As a side: I can't help but feel the 'Tengen Seal of Quality' was a bitter joke at the expense of Nintendo!

[@chrispacheco8590]

I was always mystified by those black Tengen cartridges when I was a kid and wanted practically all of them, they where some really good games at the time, I recall really wanting After Burner, and was just amazed to see Shinobi a very popular SEGA game on the NES come on one of these sleek black cartridges, it was sad to see them slowly disappear.., great piece btw I appreciate the level of quality, it held my attention 100% of the time, very well put together, very appreciative of all your hard work and passion, thank you.

[@MrSweeperUSA]

it's funny how the chip shortages excuses still continue even today with the NES classic and Nintendo switch

[@barowt]

I watch all of these history videos over and over spread through the years, still love them again and again.

[@paranormalskeptic3893]

Amazingly well done video. I could watch things like this all day. Really kept me glued to find out all about Tengen. And the mention of other subsidiaries of other large game companies was something I didn’t know. Thanks for the great video game history lesson, loved it ! Oh yeah, I immediately subscribed after finishing the video. Glad is discovered this KZbin channel.

[@Zakattacks]

You know, its funny how everyone demonizes Nintendo for their third party policies, but the fact is, after the game crash, they had every right to be. I'm not saying that some of their policies couldn't have been relaxed, but the fact is, Atari was essentially asking for special treatment, when the fact was that loose guidelines and a lack of accountability are what lead to the crash in the first place. Am I saying Namco was wrong for wanting less strict guidelines? No, but some of their practices, like betraying a trusted business partner, is appalling. Its the equivalent of making small talk with a friend while trying to get hints of his password so you can get on their facebook account and learn all their secrets. Both sides should be accountable for what they both caused. The fact is, the standards Nintendo created with their program continue to be the basis of what is considered by many to be the golden era of gaming. Its true that it built up a lot of disdain from third party companies, but what are third party companies doing now that they have complete control? They make games with less content than usual and charge us more for the rest of it, they rush development of games with glitchy and unfinished products. And don't say indies balance that out. There's plenty of bad low-budget games out there, too, they just aren't identified as indie-games. Its true, there were some stinkers for the NES and SNES, but as it stands...the third party is more anti-consumer than ever, and frankly, you can't blame Nintendo for being protective of that kind of misuse of the market that, in the long term, creates a dislike for the very product itself than just the branding on the product.

[@tailzprime9237]

Well stated!!

[@robertharris6092]

Zakattacks they make masterpieces like blackwake for one. Third party companys that is.

[@luketfer]

You WOULD have a point if the Wii hadn't just been crammed full of shovelware itself...just awful games with motion controls tacked on like Ninja Breadman (yes it existed..look it up..). The Wii became very recognised for having a few decent games and then masses and masses of just awful games to go with it.

[@wastedarse]

These shows are truly television quality. Keep up the hard work!

[@georgefremd1802]

You could probably also argue that without nintendos strict licensing policy. The game industry might not have taken off at all in the US when it did. Nintendos policy stabilized an industry.

[@arthuralexander1449]

Yeah, although it certainly would be bad in case Nintendo keep things under their control for waaay to much time as they wanted, it was still a "necesary evil" for that control to happen for some years to bring things back to normal after the absolute mess that became the gaming market, a mess that was made by Atari

[@alicyjinx8923]

I only have one Tengen cart, Ms. Pac-Man. Its WAY better than the official Ms. Pac-Man release.

[@dELTA13579111315]

I have both Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man Tengen black cartridges. They're the only Tengen cartridges I own but I've had them ever since I was born, pretty much. I dunno when the consoles officially became mine but I've been playing NES and SNES since I was 3 or 4. Lol at 4 I was better at the original Mario than my grandmother

[@JonnyOgg]

How is it better? What's different?

[@rook1196]

tengen's tetris was the best version of tetris.

[@japhreal]

I love how pac man’s design is from the 1982 cartoon of pac man The first gaming TV show

[@alicyjinx8923]

@@JonnyOgg the officially licensed version of the game is much slower and chunkier than the Tengen version.

[@sgiacomo84]

This is one of the best videos I have ever seen! So informative and very well put together! Amazing job!

[@GamingHistorian]

sgiacomo84 Wow, thank you very much!

[@TexasGuitarist]

Man, I never knew video game history could be so riveting! This could be a movie!

[@duanebonney]

Well done mate. Love these videos. Thanks for taking the time to do them. It's great to learn about the behind - the - scenes. There is so much more to the gaming world than meets the eye.

[@Hieifireshadow]

This is such a cool topic oh my gosh. I've been watching at least one of your videos every day for a few days now! These feel like mini-documentaries and I absolutely love them! Your voice is super chill, too- these are really nice as background noise and even nicer as documentaries. I'm glued to my screen every time! Thanks for making these, lots of love from a new fan! ❤️

[@DCTib]

RBI 2 and RBI 3 are still the best baseball games to this day. It would be great if someone could program versions with updated rosters and the ability to play an actual 162 game season with stats. That would be perfection. John NES lite allows you to play them anytime and anywhere.

[@skykid]

Namco was my favorite maker of games in the late 90s and early 2000s, lots of ps1 and ps2 gems they made

[@klaatu9726]

You do these type of videos better than anyone else that tries. Please don't stop!

[@robertserna9628]

Just came across your videos and I'm impressed. Well done. I think ill be binging the rest of them now.

[@jcau99]

This was probably your best video to date Norm! Enjoyed the Ken Burns style voice overs.

[@pepitopacquiao]

Satoru Iwata and Hal Laboratory also converted 3 Atari Games into the NES: Joust, Millipede and Star Gate (Defender II)

[@NickPCage]

I just found this channel, now I'm binge watching , this guy is amazing and literally keeps me intrested in the content, thank you so much for making this types of videos.

[@JasonScalici]

What an incredible episode. I didn't even care for the subject material that much but you sold it to me. It amazes me when people on KZbin, just regular people without large budgets and advertisers and major companies backing them, make videos that rival and a lot of times surpass professionals. The best part is because of the lack of advertising and major corporations, the videos are usually a lot more condensed and watchable. No flashy, high budget BS or forced product placements. Awesome job!!!

[@ilexgarodan]

I lit up at 18:44 when Kerbal Space Program music started playing!

[@MikeyMystery45]

I learned a lot from this video. I would've never learned that all from anywhere else and I've been a long time gamer. I never knew there was beef between Atari and Nintendo. It's a very interesting feud. I was always a Nintendo kid back when I was younger and I guess being born in 1986 and growing up with a Super Nintendo myself and having friends that played Sega's I just assumed you were either a Sega kind of guy or you were a Nintendo kind of guy. The whole Sega realm of video games always just seemed so foreign to me and about the farthest I dipped into that realm was with a Sega GameGear I got one birthday but honestly at 6 x AAA batteries a day it was a realm I never had a chance to explore honestly. Never put much more thought into it than that. I think I've been a Nintendo guy and learned some important history I never knew. For that I appreciate this video. Thank you.

[@soulfreaz]

For the 2600, the label's always looked far better than the game.

[@corrosyon]

The art was awesome.

[@HyperrealisticLuigi]

it was to make you think the games would be good

[@dinohermann1887]

You had to use a lot of your own imagination!

[@lucasoheyze4597]

Given how primitive the graphics were, the only way the labels could be worse than them would be to have them designed by a blind man with a blunt crayon.

[@thesterndragoon9159]

Atari: "We're going to allow anyone who wants to to make games for us and we don't care how bad the market gets saturated with pisspoor games." (Market crashes) Atari: (Steve Urkel voice): Did I do that?" Nintendo: "We're not going to risk another crash. We'll impose quality standards on games for our system." Atari: "Yeah, we're just going to ignore all that shit. Laws no important, WE NEEDS THE MONEYS!" Nintendo: "We're going to use hardware to lock you out of our systems." Atari: "We're going to illegally defeat your security, lie about it, and bitch and moan about you to the courts at the same time!" Atari were such slimy and whiny criminals the entire time. It's unfathomable to me how anyone can defend their actions and side with them over Nintendo.

[@jodymcdougle8810]

agree....

[@joser.4494]

Yeah Atari Games were slimy, sketchy, and clearly breaking the law with the way they went about aquiring the code for the 10NES program and the original Atari company could be blamed for the video game crash due to their lack of quality control. But you are ignoring some key factors. As stated in the video, for Nintendo to license games for their console, you had to make your games exclusive to their console for 2 years, hurting sales of the Sega Master System and the Atari 7800 since third-parties wouldn't publish games for their consoles. Nintendo would also take a cut out of third-party games on their console, which isn't unreasonable it is being sold on their console after all, but they made it so you had to publish your games on their cartridges, just a slimy business way of Nintendo indirectly taking an even bigger cut out of third-parties. Not to mention they only allowed licensees to publish 5 games a year, likely as quality control so third-parties released the 5 best games they had prepared that year, but also likely as a way for Nintendo to have their first-party NES games be more successful as they wouldn't have to compete with as many third-party games on the market. Not to mention Nintendo strong arming retailers into only selling NES consoles. If retail companies wished to sell Sega Master System consoles and games or Atari 7800 consoles and games, Nintendo would refuse to give those retailers NES consoles to sell. No one is saying Nintendo can't have some level of quality control on their console by only allowing games they licensed, but it's the terms of the licensing agreement, among other things listed above, that prove Nintendo were acting in a very monopolistic way. Atari Games, while going about Nintendo's licensing rules in a sketchy and frankly illegal way, forced Nintendo to no longer hold the 2 year console exclusivity part of their licensing agreement, stop bullying retailers, and later down the line get rid of the "only 5 games a year" part. This is better for third-parties letting them have more options for publishing games, better for competing first-parties such as, at the time, Sega, and currently Sony and Microsoft, since they can actually have games rather than have most console games on Nintendo consoles, and better for the consumer since more competition among consoles and games within those consoles means lower prices and more innovation. While Nintendo was legally within their right to sue Atari Games for clear copyright violation of their 10NES program, much of their other actions were clearly monopolistic ways of them making sure they had more control over the console market. Imagine if today you went into Walmart and instead of being able to buy Xbox, Playstation, and Switch consoles and games you could only buy Switch consoles and games. Now imagine if most other stores also only sold Switch consoles and games. The competitors wouldn't be able to compete, and not out of merit, but simply because Nintendo strong armed retailers It'd be like if hypothetically Henry Ford after creating the Model-T, the first car that even the average worker could afford, proceeded to tell gas companies they had to make their gas only work on Ford cars, so that General Motor car owners would be shit out of luck finding a gas station that will fuel their car. Ford sales would go way up and General Motor sales would go way down, and simply because Ford was able to bully the competition by bullying gas companies.

[@jodymcdougle8810]

These are some good points, but how do you feel the "end-game" turned out? What would have happened had these measures bot been taken? Message me if your able. Id really like to have this discussion with you.

[@thesterndragoon9159]

@Pine Barron Dude Sounds like you're an imbecile, actually.

[@time4manmode945]

Now its happening again with apple and epic games

[@Sambeck63]

I wholeheartedly believe this is one of the most underrated channels on KZbin! You deserve to have 8,000,000+ subscribers! You should be way ahead of PewDiePie!!!!

[@BubbledDEV]

He absolutely deserves more subscribers. I'm surprised he hasn't even hit a million yet.

[@aleksandrklimenko730]

I can't stress enough how good this video is. Masterpiece. Thank you so much for your hard work!

[@nintendad8168]

That was an amazing video I'd say your best to date . I enjoy all of your work but this was perfection .

[@alexissustaita2529]

That was the most complicated Nintendo vs Atari story I ever watched it was a tough battle for licensing/unlicensed rights in the gaming industry

[@LiEnby]

If they had reverse engineered 10NES it would have gone differently. I still think it's funny that years later we were able to reverse engineer 10NES from the rabbit chip rather than the Nintendo lockout chip .

[@andreumarti3216]

Norman, I've been a fan of your work since a few years by now, and I've recently discovered you also write articles, and I liked them almost as much as your videos. Then I thought, have you ever thought about writting a book about videogame history, like some sort of encyclopedia or something? If you made a Kickstarter page to found it, I would definitely support it and purchase a copy of the book. Though I'm sure you have thought about it in some point, I personaly encourage you to do it. Great video, as always. Keep working that good :) Greetings from Spain

[@90SecondGameReviews]

Hideyuki Nakajima died on the same day 21 years before Satoru Iwata.

[@simpsonfanboy]

Joey Russell That's really an amazing coincidence. The guy who led the fight against Nintendo's strict policies died the same day 21 years before the guy who ultimately reformed Nintendo and moved them away from those strict policies.

[@neilisbored2177]

(That sound effect that happens after paula gets kidnapped)

[@derpd6578]

Okey

[@yaboisanic2922]

@@neilisbored2177 da-da-da-da-Daaa

[@josephhewitt1867]

Whoo-Hoo! My Pacmania artwork! And there is a picture of the Vindicators box!!! These were both done by Westwood Studios, know then before the Virgin buyout as Westwood Associates and some of the first games I worked on. Somewhere I have a development cartridge of Tengen's Tetris that we got while working with them. I haven't seen it in years though, so who knows.

[@KabukeeJo]

The "Seal of Quality" really meant "Licensing Fees Paid in Full" since many shitty games came out for the NES that were pure poop. And some games came out with serious bugs, such as Castlevania. So much for quality.

[@garyvarjian3420]

Castlevania is beyond reproach

[@somethingsomething9008]

Its was more to prevent overlfooding the market because that's what kinda caused the video game crash

[@ultrairrelevantnobody1862]

Yep, Retail glut caused the crash. Not just low quality games, but even overorders of highly popular games.

[@KabukeeJo]

@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 It was not just a glut that caused the crash. it was a glut of pure cheaply made crappy games meant to make a quick buck.

[@ultrairrelevantnobody1862]

@@KabukeeJo While there were a lot of bad games on Atari, most of them weren't sold in major retail shops. There are exceptions, but low quality games generally could be found only in smaller shops that were easier to make deals with. A lot of the bad games that barely sold much, like Chase the Chuck Wagon, did a lot less damage financially to companies than commercially successful games.

[@LINK67890]

17:12 "More variety" "Open the marked place" Did he forget "The Video Game Crash of 1983"?

[@jodymcdougle8810]

@The monster under your bed i like some of the LJN titles!

[@anthonygillette]

I feel how frustrating this would be, looking at the time period here is important. Nintendo wanting to ensure the Seal of Quality was important. This was so soon after the Video Game Crash, bad games made with low quality programming that made it extremely difficult for consumers to differentiate good games from bad. Tengen themselves showed very clearly that they were not licensed games; the black altered cartridge made it easy to tell for experienced users. I feel like there could have been a strong middle ground where the games could still be sold, but had to be labeled as “Not Licensed or Guaranteed by Nintendo or it’s subsidiaries” while also needing to use clearly altered style of cartridges. A simple label like this would have kept the game market extremely open, but also protected Nintendo’s reputation.

[@MrAlamazin]

Dude this is the best historical piece of work I've ever seen. And I grew up during an age when Discovery and The History Channel was a thing. Thank you for your work here.

[@anthonymaslow798]

Lol, no one who had any actual background in history every thought the History Channel was good.

[@matthewkluge5441]

R.B.I. Baseball was the best head to head baseball game ever !

[@TYBG85]

You remind me of a young Ben Mankiewicz of TMC fame. I love your channel and am really digging the quality. It's a played out comment at this point but this video and alot of your content evokes a PBS quality level. Very impressive.

[@Tsadi9Mem9Khet9]

The first Tetris cartridge I ever saw over 30 years ago was a Tengen one that was borrowed from someone by my older stepbrother.

[@kniferaffe]

Shit, Norm, this belongs on tv. Awesome job.

[@captcorajus]

AWESOME voice over, and presentation. I've been binging on your channel. Its very addictive. Thanks!

[@NYCHeavyHitz212]

Damn. Just when I thought the Super Mario Bros. 2 vid was great, I was glued to this one right after. Best episode I've seen thus far.