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Codemasters History: The NES’ Best Unlicensed Developer

159 points by shortformblog 8y ago

provlem 8y ago
may be nintendo never worried about codemasters
degenerate 8y ago
A little more reading on the making/history of Micro Machines if you are interested: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/05/feature_the_making_of_micro_machines_the_best_racer_on_the_nes http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/05/feature_the_making_...
superflyguy 8y ago
Nintendo sued them for bypassing their protection. Often people caved; Nintendo/Sega controlled how many games a developer could get published; the genre etc. Codemasters was like "yeah, right" and reversed engineered it, and got sued. Apparently they thought they were going to lose and agreed with Codemasters to call off the lawsuit as long as Codemasters maintained publicly that they had done a deal with Nintendo to end the case. Source: common knowledge in the small West England game dev community.
- audiolion 8y ago
  I read Console Wars and it was a really insightful look into how Nintendo and Sega came to be and how they operated if you are interested in this sort of thing. https://mobile.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/Console-Wars-Audiobook/B00JQN221C&ved=2ahUKEwjf2__LstbbAhXDzVkKHQgYASE4ChAWMAF6BAgAEAE&usg=AOvVaw3sZOhsAGzbD2vFB0nz3jTW https://mobile.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/Console-War...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- teuobk 8y ago
  Nintendo also sued Galoob over the Game Genie, which Galoob had licensed (purchased?) from Codemasters. Nintendo lost, and then they lost again on appeal. The issue was whether the Game Genie created derivative works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nin....
  - stordoff 8y ago
    FWIW, Hacker News appears to interpreted the last . in the link as a full stop, so if it doesn't work for anyone else you need to add a . at the end.
- ohala 8y ago
  Reversed from the DOS binary is an amazing feat. SDL makes this type of thing so easy and could be used for so many things in this regard.
  - quietbritishjim 8y ago
    What is SDL?
    - hugja 8y ago
      SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) - http://libsdl.org http://libsdl.org
- 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
  > Nintendo/Sega controlled how many games a developer could get published; the genre etc. Konami got around this another way, by creating a shell company (Ultra Games in the US, Palcom Software in Europe/UK) that obtained its own license.
caio1982 8y ago
"The original A/B testing" picture was definitely worth it already, I just had to stop reading it to share this treasure!
laumars 8y ago
Dizzy was one of my all time favourite series on the CPC. I replayed one of them recently and it's has aged pretty well all things considered.
puzzle 8y ago
The original Codemasters was one of a kind. Rock Star Ate My Hamster was a lot of juvenile fun.
- bencollier49 8y ago
  "Bad news, boss!" I remember the joy of accidentally having your band endorse a campaign to euthanise OAPs. Fun times.
bluedino 8y ago
I always wondered what the exposed connector was on the back of the cartridge after I rented that game

159 points by shortformblog 8y ago

may be nintendo never worried about codemasters

A little more reading on the making/history of Micro Machines if you are interested: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/05/feature_the_making_of_micro_machines_the_best_racer_on_the_nes http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/05/feature_the_making_...

superflyguy 8y ago

Nintendo sued them for bypassing their protection. Often people caved; Nintendo/Sega controlled how many games a developer could get published; the genre etc. Codemasters was like "yeah, right" and reversed engineered it, and got sued. Apparently they thought they were going to lose and agreed with Codemasters to call off the lawsuit as long as Codemasters maintained publicly that they had done a deal with Nintendo to end the case. Source: common knowledge in the small West England game dev community.

audiolion 8y ago
I read Console Wars and it was a really insightful look into how Nintendo and Sega came to be and how they operated if you are interested in this sort of thing. https://mobile.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/Console-Wars-Audiobook/B00JQN221C&ved=2ahUKEwjf2__LstbbAhXDzVkKHQgYASE4ChAWMAF6BAgAEAE&usg=AOvVaw3sZOhsAGzbD2vFB0nz3jTW https://mobile.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/Console-War...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
teuobk 8y ago
Nintendo also sued Galoob over the Game Genie, which Galoob had licensed (purchased?) from Codemasters. Nintendo lost, and then they lost again on appeal. The issue was whether the Game Genie created derivative works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nin....
- stordoff 8y ago
  FWIW, Hacker News appears to interpreted the last . in the link as a full stop, so if it doesn't work for anyone else you need to add a . at the end.
ohala 8y ago
Reversed from the DOS binary is an amazing feat. SDL makes this type of thing so easy and could be used for so many things in this regard.
- quietbritishjim 8y ago
  What is SDL?
  - hugja 8y ago
    SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) - http://libsdl.org http://libsdl.org
0xcde4c3db 8y ago
> Nintendo/Sega controlled how many games a developer could get published; the genre etc. Konami got around this another way, by creating a shell company (Ultra Games in the US, Palcom Software in Europe/UK) that obtained its own license.

caio1982 8y ago

"The original A/B testing" picture was definitely worth it already, I just had to stop reading it to share this treasure!

laumars 8y ago

Dizzy was one of my all time favourite series on the CPC. I replayed one of them recently and it's has aged pretty well all things considered.

puzzle 8y ago

The original Codemasters was one of a kind. Rock Star Ate My Hamster was a lot of juvenile fun.

bencollier49 8y ago
"Bad news, boss!" I remember the joy of accidentally having your band endorse a campaign to euthanise OAPs. Fun times.

bluedino 8y ago

I always wondered what the exposed connector was on the back of the cartridge after I rented that game