5 ms·

As a child I used to wonder about that "Seal of Quality" because it was on every Nintendo game you could find. Every game had this seal. Either it was a Ninten

As a child I used to wonder about that "Seal of Quality" because it was on every Nintendo game you could find. Every game had this seal. Either it was a Nintendo gimmick or the market didn't offer games that didn't have the seal. edit: lost myself in a double negation

nolok 13y ago
The market tried, I can't find a link at the moment and I'm unsure if this was NES, SuperNES or even on a Sega console, but there was a legal battle around making a game on un-licensed cartridge. You didn't see any, because Nintendo succeeded in being in control of what could be released.
- simcop2387 13y ago
  It was the NES, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10NES http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10NES They eventually lost I believe, and some developers worked around it by making cartridges that would pass through the chip from an existing game.
  - aestra 13y ago
    Super Noah's Ark 3D was an unlicensed SNES cartridge that needed an official cartridge "pass through" to work. http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/1/14684/383841-noah.jpg http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/1/14684/383841-...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
Spoom 13y ago
The seal was basically the same as saying "this game is licensed by Nintendo." There were some games without the seal, but they were unauthorized and typically Nintendo sued them. You couldn't get a game on a standard Nintendo cartridge without being licensed, so these games were actually put on reverse-engineered, custom manufactured cartridges[1] that overloaded the piracy detection circuit[2] on the NES. Interestingly, when Nintendo built the Game Boy, they came up with a novel way of protecting it from unlicensed games: They made the system check that the console had a bitmap of the Nintendo logo at a specific part of the cartridge memory, and refused to boot if it was not there. Unlicensed cartridge manufacturers could then be sued for trademark infringement.[3] This logo was actually the one displayed when the console booted up, which is why if you booted the console without a cartridge inserted, you would see a black rectangle in the place where the Nintendo logo normally appeared. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_(Atari) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_(Atari) [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10NES http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10NES [3] http://fantranslation.org/ja/node/16 http://fantranslation.org/ja/node/16
- rtpg 13y ago
  The trademark infringement strategy is great and super scary at the same time
  - Spoom 13y ago
    My understanding is that Sega v. Accolade[1] made it moot, so trademark infringement can no longer be claimed in such a manner (it's now considered fair use). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade

nolok 13y ago

The market tried, I can't find a link at the moment and I'm unsure if this was NES, SuperNES or even on a Sega console, but there was a legal battle around making a game on un-licensed cartridge. You didn't see any, because Nintendo succeeded in being in control of what could be released.

simcop2387 13y ago
It was the NES, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10NES http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10NES They eventually lost I believe, and some developers worked around it by making cartridges that would pass through the chip from an existing game.
- aestra 13y ago
  Super Noah's Ark 3D was an unlicensed SNES cartridge that needed an official cartridge "pass through" to work. http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/1/14684/383841-noah.jpg http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/1/14684/383841-...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

Spoom 13y ago

The seal was basically the same as saying "this game is licensed by Nintendo." There were some games without the seal, but they were unauthorized and typically Nintendo sued them. You couldn't get a game on a standard Nintendo cartridge without being licensed, so these games were actually put on reverse-engineered, custom manufactured cartridges[1] that overloaded the piracy detection circuit[2] on the NES. Interestingly, when Nintendo built the Game Boy, they came up with a novel way of protecting it from unlicensed games: They made the system check that the console had a bitmap of the Nintendo logo at a specific part of the cartridge memory, and refused to boot if it was not there. Unlicensed cartridge manufacturers could then be sued for trademark infringement.[3] This logo was actually the one displayed when the console booted up, which is why if you booted the console without a cartridge inserted, you would see a black rectangle in the place where the Nintendo logo normally appeared. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_(Atari) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_(Atari) [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10NES http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10NES [3] http://fantranslation.org/ja/node/16 http://fantranslation.org/ja/node/16

rtpg 13y ago
The trademark infringement strategy is great and super scary at the same time
- Spoom 13y ago
  My understanding is that Sega v. Accolade[1] made it moot, so trademark infringement can no longer be claimed in such a manner (it's now considered fair use). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade