In Europe Konami didn't use the Ultra brand but the Palcom brand instead. What's strange is that in Europe Castlevania and Castlevania II were published under the Konami label but Castlevania III under the Palcom label.
By Europe, do you mean mainland Europe? Here in the UK, i'm 99% sure TMNT was released under Ultra...I've still got my cart upstairs and could check this, but too lazy to..!
Fun fact: inputting the "Konami Code" on the title screen of TMNT II: The Arcade Game will give you 30 extra lives just like it did for Contra, and LifeForce. But it wouldn't do anything special if used on TMNT or TMNT III: The Manhattan Project
@@AndSaveAsManyAsYouCan: Also, the cheat codes for _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game_ were entirely different in the Japanese version of the game, which is simply called _TMNT_ because _TMNT1_ on the Famicom was released as _Gekikame Ninja Den_ .
I think Konami had a good relationship with Nintendo and it was all probably a formality so other companies didn't feel like they were the only company getting special treatment. You should have mentioned that in PAL regions the alternative company was called Palcom and they released some games like Parodius and Road Fighter which weren't released in the US as well as Crackout which was a Famicom Disc System game in Japan.
I was gaming as a child when the NES was current. Everybody knew, at the time, that Ultra was actually Konami. The pause jingle sound is the same for both "brands". And Konami was the absolute best NES publisher, better than Nintendo. Their games still hold up.
Also, the games were always copyrighted to Konami and never Ultra (except of those simply published by Ultra and not made in-house by Konami), whose full company name was Ultra Software Corporation.
I never actually knew this. Mind you, I was a _very young_ child when the NES was current... 3 years old when the NES hit American store shelves in '86, 6 years old when my family got our NES in '89, and 8 years old when the SNES hit American store shelves in '91. I never had a clue about things like this until quite a while later. I only had the vaguest idea that even Tengen were doing anything cheeky.
There's this European company Palcom Software which is quite similar. They operated from 1989 to 1993. Palcom Software had released games on the SNES. Just like Ultra Games, Palcom Software was also created by Konami to allow more than 5 games per year. Acclaim Entertainment created the Flying Edge and Arena Entertainment labels in order to release games on Sega consoles as a loophole to Nintendo's exclusivity deal.
Other video game companies also launched divisions for releasing games on non-Nintendo consoles, including the following: Sage’s Creation: A division of Hot-B USA Treco: A division of Sammy Speaking of Arena Entertainment, before it was acquired by Acclaim in 1992, Arena was the US division of the England-based Mirrorsoft.
palcom? PAL company? at least they tried a LITTLE bit with the name for "ultra games" rofl. I wonder if that was established afterwards and konami already knew that nintendo didn't care. Now I can't stop picturing a game company called NTSCcom
When I read the title I thought this would be a video about how Konami bypassed the lockout to secretly publish unlicensed games, but I was very wrong! Forming a 2nd company to release more games honestly was a genius move!
@@IntegerOfDoom Unity might be overdoing it? "Look". 'The line ahead of you could stretch forever, but you can't see around the rotund gentleman who smells faintly of french fries who has also found a way to consume most of your field of view.'
@@jeffb.6642 You have to fight 52 minibosses in a row with 3 lives, just to get a number. Then you have to do some battle royale wrestling to get a seat in the waiting area.
Great video Pojr. Fun Fact: Konami wasn't the only company to do this. Acclaim used LJN. Would love to see a future video about Tengen. Great title could be: How Atari Made The First UNLICENSED Games For The NES.
Atari Games' beef with Nintendo's illegal restrictive & anticompetitive practices actually created the gaslighting Nintendo Seal of Approval. They claimed "unlicensed" games would actually Damage the NES while all the end user needed to do was clip Pin 4 of the 10NES chip.
3:32 I wonder if that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game is on the Cowabunga collection I think there's like 15 games on there again I could be wrong but there is a lot of old games on there
Rollergames didn't have characters exactly, it had teams. I'm not sure the team member ever changes, but it was supposed to represent teams from the show.
I am not even sure there were a lot of expenses since it's not like they printed another set of labels for each game, we have a store in Ukraine called Rozetka, it's an Amazon clone that only ships locally and they work with other shops. They have the same draconian Nintendo contract that brands that sell on their platform aren't allowed to sell on others. So EVERYONE makes a shell company to sell, and that includes guys who sell PC cables or mousepads.
Konami's excellent port of Gyruss -- which I had as a kid -- was also an Ultra-branded release for North America. An image of the Konami-branded Famicom release is shown in the video.
What Nintendo did back then is illegal today. They basically monopolized the devs with really strict contracts, which is why the other 8 bit competition did do so well (outside of the Gaming computers of the EU which in the UK outsold the Nintendo Entertainment System, as the NES was seen as a "Rich kid's toy" due to the prices.) Imagine if they, Microsoft, Sony did that today.. [Metaphorical] heads would be rolling in the legal battlegrounds.
Don't forget Sega tried to implement restrictions where they would be the publisher of all games on their new console. Needless to say that backfired hard.
It was illegal back then too. The only reason Nintendo dropped those policies was because they were the court systems eventually caught up with them. Forced them to quit.
@@PeperonyChease no, forced exclusivity by third party devs. Nintendo forced anyone who made games for them, they could NOT make games for any other system. Which is why the Turbografix and Mastersystem had very small 3rd party development. Basically it was "Make games for us, and nobody else if you want games on our console." it was incredibly unfair for competitors and extremely unethical for Nintendo to pull that stunt.
Back when I was a kid I used to think that Ultra games were just like the "extreme" line of games by Konami, just like how back in the 1990s there were always "extreme" versions of snacks. Or kind of like how Lexus is upgraded Toyota and Genesis is upgraded Hyundai...in my idiotic adolescence I thought that Ultra was like the luxury line of Konami titles.
konami and nintendo were so tight knit by the time the NES released in america im pretty sure nintendo advised them to open up a seperate publishing house shell company.
Hey POJR, I was a kid in the 80s and I remember this pretty well. I could be wrong, but as a kid the perception that I had was that Ultra was like a prestige brand of Konami. You could kind of tell that Ultra and Konami had a relationship, somehow. There were telltale signs in the art direction and in particular the music. It felt to me like Ultra's branding was reserved the the special titles that were extra-good. Games like TMNT, it wasn't that Konami thought that the TMNT brand was powerful enough by itself that it didn't "need" the Konami name behind it in order for it to sell; it was that they were signifying that TMNT was SO special that it was getting published under the Ultra Games label. Think of it like Lexus and Toyota, or Lincoln and Ford. The 5 games/year limit was a real thing, though. But I didn't learn about that until sometime after. I think that came out during the anti-trust lawsuit against Nintendo for their monopoly practices during the NES era.
I’m surprised Nintendo approved Ultra Games as a third party developer. Didn’t anyone at Nintendo noticed the address and phone number of Ultra Games is the same as Konami?!😂
It didn’t matter. A lot of companies did this. They had to pay for a separate license, and kits, and it restricted junk releases still because it was not cheap to do this. Not to mention the legal fees to setup another company with the country. Idk how much that is in Japan, but it’s a lot of work in US
8:24 I think I might know the reason. If I'm not mistaken on the NES itself the game was released by Konami so they changed the name back to Nemesis when they released it under their other company name ultra on the Game Boy to try to make it look more distinct and maybe prevent Nintendo from noticing
Nintendo knew about it before the company was formed. Konami received Nintendos blessing before Ultragames got off the ground. There wasn’t any dishonesty involved
This is funny considering that Nintendo STOLE Donkey Kong and then went to court to remove the rights from the original creator. This was one of Nintendo's first moves in the video game space. Nintendo knew what they were willing to do to other creators to maintain their rights, and I think that's why they are overprotective of their brands and characters.
Even tho I already knew this, it still bothers me that I have a copy of Nemesis for gameboy with the Ultra label while my Nemesis 2 copy has the Konami label. I know there is a release of the first game under the Konami label that was released in Germany tho, so I might have to grab it because of my stupid OCD.
TMNT receives harsh criticism because it has platforming issues (and literal bugs in the case of the underwater section) that make it much more frustrating and unforgiving to play than it needs to be. Not "angry reviewers".
It was a dig at AVGN, which is popular with modern retro community that grew up with internet guides and savestates, while James Rolfe made videos to vent about things that were frustrating as a kid without modern convenience. I know because I also couldn't land that plane in Top Gun! XD And rarely went past 2nd level in Turtles, while the sequels were simple and fun beatemups we completed with friends in co-op.
It was Nintendo's response to all the shovelware that killed gaming in America during Atari's day. It seems draconian today, but back then there really was a need to ensure quality so consumers in America didn't feel burned again like they did during the video game crash of the 80s
And yet the Nintendo Seal of Quality and 10NES lockout chip did fuck all to stop shovelware from appearing on the NES. Even without factoring in the unlicensed games and Taiwanese bootlegs, there was still a ton of shovelware on the NES (i.e., anything LJN did). But the 10NES chip also prevented even LICENSED games from working. This was a problem for import gamers, as the Japanese Famicom didn't have the chip. Even licensed North American games would be locked out no thanks to the lockout chip. So retro gamers who play NES games on original hardware simply open up their consoles and cut one of the pins on the 10NES chip--problem solved.
@@DarDarBinks1986 I mean sure, you're not going to stop everything. But it really can't be overstated how saturated Atari was with clones and poorly produced games. Consumers at the time didn't have anything but magazines and maybe the recommendation of a store clerk in order to research. So while it was an imperfect solution in hindsight, at the time limiting production really was the best way to ensure quality. If you're only allowed to put out 5 games a year, sure you can make them all shovelware, but they won't sell (unless like LJN you license a popular property), so at the end of it all, they accomplished the goal by making sure there was more Mario, Megaman, and Contra then there was garbage and ensuring that while crap existed, it was by percentages more likely the blind consumer would end up with a decent-to-good quality game
They still have hundreds if not thousands of shovelware on their storefront. It made sense then, and it wouldn't hurt to re-implement it again every now and then.
@@DarDarBinks1986 I mean, it definitely helped. The NES didn't have as large of a proportion of awful games as preceding computers and consoles did. For the most part, "bad" NES games were, on the surface, just unfairly difficult, which most of the time was just because they were fairly faithful ports of arcade quarter-eaters. Or, because they had odd gameplay mechanics that weren't explained in-game, and people played them as rentals or secondhand purchases without the luxury of a user manual. They _weren't_ ever bad for being clunky, barely-playable, or barely-recognizable multi-platform cash-grab messes. For examples of arcade quarter eaters: Contra, Double Dragon, Battletoads, Karnov, 1942, and 1943. For examples of games with unclear mechanics for lack of tutorials: Little Nemo, RoboCop, and Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. As much as it's a trope how modern games really hold your hand through early levels, it's kinda understandable, given how earlier games just threw you to the wolves assuming that you had either (a) played the game a few _dozen_ times at the arcade or (b) studied a user manual. "Bad" NES games mostly weren't bad on their own merits, they were "bad" for their learning curves.
Are you familiar with the NES Konami game _Laser Invasion_ ? Hidden in the game's code is legal info that reveals that Konami of America was originally going to release the game under their Ultra subsidiary. Anyway, good video. I do wish that you could have went into more detail of the other games developed by Konami but published by Ultra Games like _Metal Gear_ , _Snake's Revenge_ , and _Mission: Impossible_ .
Fun fact: Konami using the Ultra Games branding as a trademark in the USA not only loophole Nintendo's policy, it also prevent Nintendo from trademarking that name for their 64-Bit console. For those who don't know before the N64 was a thing worldwide, it originally was going to be called the Nintendo Ultra 64 for NA and EU and the Famicom Ultra 64 for Japan but because Nintendo can't use the Ultra name in NA due to Konami's holding a trademark of that they just change it to the vaguely named N64 for all regions.
Are you sure that’s what happened? Common words, like “Ultra”, can’t be trademarked but “Nintendo Ultra 64” could be trademarked. I doubt a company like Konami, dependent on the Nintendo platform for their product, would rub them the wrong way. Plus, I’m sure Nintendo would have no problem taking Konami to court if they needed to.
This would imply that Konami knew Nintendo was working on a 64-bit 'Ultra' console as early as 1988. When Project Reality didn't start until 1993, maybe 1992 at the earliest. Where would have Konami gotten such insider information? Potentially subconscious information the developers didn't even know they were thinking of at that time?
That wasn't a fact, that was a rumor that Nintendo actually denied. They said that it was not renamed because of a trademark issue but for the sole purpose to use the same brand and logo for the world, unlike what they did with previous consoles by naming them something different in Japan.
That is not how copyright works. You cannot copyright common words or phrases. Second it is based of what you are selling. Ultra games would be different from Ultra bakery.
It wasn’t renamed cause of Konami, it was named ultra cause it was its code name, like katana was for Dreamcast. It was named Nintendo 64 to be consistent with all Nintendo consoles of the time. (Aside from the handhelds)
12:42 kind of crazy if you think about it because Nintendo is very evil. But if both companies are bringing in money why stop it I just didn't know that there was an arcade Ninja Turtles game for the Nintendo I really wish I knew that back when I was a kid
The other theory I've heard for the Ultra Games branding is they're generally games that appeal to American sensibilities already. Metal Gear, Ninja Turtles, Skate or Die, and even stuff like Defender of the Crown and Pirates, whereas games that were core Konami, or a bit 'weirder' to Americans were Konami. But I don't even think that's perfect either.
I kinda thought that, too, in hindsight. The OG _Metal Gear_ on NES was pretty different at the time as well because it went against the grain of such action-oriented games on the NES like _Contra_ , _Jackal_ , _Commando_ , the _194X_ series, and _Bionic Commando_ , to name a few.
I could be wrong but it seems like the only possible answer. The reason why Konami released some “top tier” games under the Ultra brand was to boost quarterly earnings for the company. Konami and Ultra might have been “separate” companies so to help finance their operations, Konami would send a great game to Ultra so that both companies could be financially independent.
Acclaim pulled a similar trick, releasing additional games under the LJN label. It was slightly different, since LJN was originally a separate company and only became part of Acclaim after an acquisition, but they used it in much the same way, publishing additional titles beyond Nintendo's limits and licensed titles under the label. Those games were generally lower quality than Konami's though.
Nice video composition, and nice distillation of the story of why Nintendo went the way they did with game licensing for the NES. And this is the first time I've heard of the 5 game per year publishing limit, so thanks for that! Also, yeah, Fall Of The Foot Clan was outrageously easy considering how brutal the original TMNT NES game was. Playing Fall Of The Foot Clan feels like playing a modern game on Very Easy mode: You just get into the rhythm and go through the motions and you'll beat it in less than an hour. And maybe that was even intentional: While NES games were meant to keep you engaged for hours and hours on your couch honing your skills, maybe even way back in the late '80s and early '90s, developers felt that pocket games were best enjoyed for shorter bursts on your lunch break or while waiting for a bus or train.
Something to consider for gameboy games is that when you were playing on a real gameboy back in the day, you were limited by battery life, lighting, and whatever situation you were able to play in as a kid. You really needed a game that you could potentially beat on a car ride to grandma's house. And the early games did not have battery backed up save, just passwords which could be annoying. I had both TMNT and Nemesis as a kid and I liked being able to jump into any level without entering a password.
You know, I've seen the Ultra Games logo but I never picked up on it before. All the games under that brand I have played, I already knew were Konami so it never even occurred to me that they had been rebranded.
It's worth mentioning that RollerGames, the TV show, was way different from the video game. There was no skating through jungles or jumping over pits, it was just a souped-up roller derby with a figure eight track instead of an oval. There _was_ an alligator pit in the first episode though. Still has theatrics though as the show had a sort of wrestling style kayfabe to it. There was an arcade version of RollerGames that emulated the show's format better. Fitting considering, like any arcade game, it was designed to be played for a few minutes at a time while the NES version was made to be more of an adventure. Considering the show only lasted for one season, it got quite a bit of merchandising. Besides the two games, there was also a pinball table, a CD album containing the theme songs used in the show, a magazine, and action figures!
11:42 yeah I was going to say how can you sue someone for making another company. Unless it's written in the contract that you can't make games for any other company. Then I feel like there is kind of a way around that where you have someone else open up the company then have the developers work both companies
A reason that 5 game rule was abolished is that by that time, Sega came out with the Genesis/Mega Drive, which became the first real competition that Nintendo had. Sega began getting more aggressive, and had some of their own good games in Sonic and Echo. Something else Sega did was to allow devs to create games with more mature themes and content, something Nintendo wasn't doing and continued to restrict even after they relaxed the 5 game rule. That meant that third parties just could go to Sega and have just as much success as they would have with Nintendo's consoles. Thus, Nintendo seemly had to make sure devs were happy now instead of trying to get a monopoly.
I remember when Konami was starting to get ready to move from Illinois to California and they gave us all a heap of unopened games from the warehouse including a giant stack of whatever Ultra games were wanted. I thought it was Christmas.
Konami also produced under PALCOM in Europe, which saw games like Contra (with the name Probotector - and literally being Robocop) being released under Konami for the NES and PALCOM on the GameBoy. So theoretically, if Konami wanted to, they could have released at least 15 games in one year if they really wanted to, because Konami released their five games in both the U.S. and Europe under Konami, but used ULTRA in the U.S. and PALCOM in Europe, where they could have flooded the market.
I like your content! Consider yourself subscribed and I'm looking forward to more videos in the future 😅 I do have a question though. What music was used in the outro? It sounds like it's from a snes game, but I can't figure it out for the life of me
I was not ready for your hair. That's very neat hair! ^^ I did know about Ultra games being Konami but didn't know they were sneaky like that. Interesting stuff.
I would have liked to see an animated TV special or novel based on the TMNT The Arcade Game (on NES). It could flesh out the story and might explain why Shredder decided to lure the Turtles in by staging an arson attack on Channel 6, to try to score a media victory against them and having one of his mutants kidnap April O'Neil. PS. I wondered why the TMNT don't have other TV stations in New York to turn to. April is not the only reporter the Turtles can befriend to help them against the Shredder and Dimension X and earn the city's trust.
Maybe some of these releases got the Ultra Games monicker because of the limit of 5 games Nintendo imposed. You'll have to see each game release date to see if Nemesis (for exemple) was a late year release, so they had to use a ultra games slot since all other konami-branded titles were already used.
The whole idea of Ultra was Nintendo's idea. Konami asked for an exception to the 5 games a year cap Nintendo gave their licenses and they said no. However, they said, there's nothing stopping you from obtaining a second license. The whole thing was written about in "Game Over" and there was nothing nefarious about it. Just good business for both companies.
I used to think the 5 games a year rule was a bit harsh on Nintendos side but I now know that coming out of the video game crash of the 80s that they were looking after their product and making sure only quality was being released and not quantity. Konami had to work around it because they were producing hit after hit. Not every publisher can say the same during this time period.
It makes sense why Nintendo ignored it since the restrictions was to prevent the appearance of a crash through a single visible company flooding the market. Konami and Ultra is perceived as different companies on the surface and that was good enough.
By today's standards, the practices of limiting games the way Nintendo did on the NES seems overly strict and abusive. But given the quality of games on consoles before the NES, it was very much needed. Companies had to bring their best 5 games. Rather than flood the market with cheap games. I would point out that despite the limits, the NES Library was the most extensive of any console, even those that came after. Its not something I would agree with a console company doing today, since the market doesn't require it now. But it was a necessary evil that encouraged video game companies to up their game, if you'll forgive the pun.
Not that it prevented Acclaim to make shovelware. They even did the same tactic as Konami, just buying up LJN & using them as another way to release a bunch of licensed games. Oddly enough, their LJN-published titles were usually of higher quality than Acclaim-published ones.
It was just after the video game crash. They did it to control the quality of the games on the NES. People didn't trust video games anymore after the vast number of garbage that was released on Atari, this was their solation. As well as the NES seal of quality.
that was actually a misunderstanding of the policy; you weren't allowed to release the same game for another console for, I think, 2 years. It prevented multiplats meanwhile, Sega did not have such a policy and as a result got a bunch of exclusives simply because Nintendo had already blocked them
@@andrewcarlton6196 stop defending monopolists, there were much more crap with Nintendo Seal of Approval than on actual pirated multicarts that filtered out stuff. WAY more kusoge on NES than on yellow Famiclone cartridges.
1. Nobody who paid any attention was confused about Ultra being Konami. This wasn't a secret. 2. Nintendo was completely fine with this "loophole". They didn't have to license Ultra. The reason why other companies couldn't set up their own Ultra was because Nintendo didn't allow it. 3. Still, companies frequently licensed games to other publishers to release in the US. Galaga was released by Bandai, for example. 4. The decision to release on Ultra or Konami was sometimes based on a franchise, but they also had to consider which label had open slots on which platform.
@@jarvindriftwoodNo, because LJN is literally another example of this situation. Acclaim purchased LJN as a means of bypassing the 5-game limit. I'm pretty sure all Nintendo cared about was that both entities paid their licensing fees.
TMNT the Arcade Game was one of the best games on the NES. Not a very long game but it was fun to play. I built an arcade stick controller for my NES. Made an already amazing game even better.
5:12 Nah, man, as a kid I hated this game way before AVGN was a thing... it and Top Gun and Blaster tank thing by Sunsoft, they were extremely hard and confusing for a child. Nerd says what we felt as kids without guides or internet.
It’s been so long now, I don’t even care why or how they did what they did. I absolutely adored all the TMNT games back then as well as others. Good on them for finding a loophole, otherwise, we’d have missed out on some great games!
I never got past the swimming stage on NES TMNT stage. Me and brother couldnt get further than that point. Mightve survived with 1 turtle on very low health but not much overworld play
we used to get so many games because it was relatively cheap to develop them.. today's business model is not great as these studios think they're making movies instead of games, they forget its about gameplay and not about hiring voice actors and having the latest graphics. Its supposed to be challenging and fun, not just put you on rails so you can move through a storyline. So they spend millions of dollars developing games, and they can't take any risks anymore. Especially the big north american companies.
In the US it wasn't hard, in fact due to the case Atari vs Activision and the fallout from it that was a significant factor for the crash In 1983. It left all consoles vulnerable since then. Now Nintendo was smarter in the encryption locks to avoid having the same issue that Atari faced . Which has been a standard for all consoles since including updating the method for the locks. Another thing regarding what consoles did and still do, in getting a game tested it costs thousands of dollars for each test. In fact COD2:BRO almost was scrapped because it almost didn't get past the QA testing for online by Activision. In addition, Nintendo didn't allow a single company to publish 5 games a year. Due to what happened with Atari and the oversaturated market of their games. Nintendo only allowed 5 games each year to be released for the console when it was released. Later that might've increased but initially it was kept down for the console not for each publisher.
I could be wrong on this, but I believe that the exclusivity deal Nintendo was offering was a minimum of 2 years before you could then publish your games onto the other competitors' consoles.
Please, PLEASE, consider a sibilance reduction plugin for your audio mix. The words ending in "S" are very harsh on the listener's ears. Especially true when we are listening through headphones. I don't mean to critique such things, but I really think this change would go a long way to improve the production of your videos. Thanks.
Acclaim/LJN did this as well. They took it further by creating the Arena and Flying Edge labels and released games on the Sega Genesis under those names.
Nintendo and its investors were initially weary of releasing a home video game console because of the great video game crash. Home video games were at the time considered a passing fad and the fear of the Nintendo's failure was real. The Atari 2600 had been incredibly successful but Atari's market share seemed to evaporate overnight. The downfall of the Atari 2600 was due to developers flooding the market with cheap low quality games. Many of which were clones of other games but slightly changed. Consumers are only interested in so many different versions of Pacman. Meanwhile competitors to the 2600 like the Coleco Vision and Intellivision diluted the market and made the problem of too many bad games worse. Retailers ended up with shelves flooded with terrible games and after a while people started to return them. Retailers concluded that video games had been a fad and dumped the product range, although in reality it was just due to over saturation. Contrary to popular belief ET for the 2600 wasn't the direct cause of the video game crash, it was just the most egregious example of the problem. This is why the NES was released as the Famicom in Japan. It was intended to double as a Family Computer hence the name Famicom. The idea being that Nintendo could do something else with it if the games didn't sell. By the time they decided to release the NES in North America and Europe they new it was going to be a success and dropped the idea of it doubling as a personal computer. The Seal of Quality and tight licensing rules served to both ensure the Nintendo titles met minimal quality standards and to line Nintendo's pockets with licensing fees. Nintendo knew full well that Konami was using Ultra games to get around their rules, they just didn't care because Konami was consistently releasing good quality titles so releasing more than 5 games a year didn't matter. If they had released licensed games on par with LJN they probably would have had a word with them.
Legally Konami met the Rules setting up a new company. If Nintendo had sued, they would have to admit unfair contracts and being questioned in court. That something the big N didn’t want to happen
Ultra Games published a lot of good stuff! In addition to Metal Gear and Ninja Turtles, one of the most memorable Ultra games to me was Base Wars, and I always wished that it had gotten a SNES sequel! Also, I'm sure Konami wasn't the only 3rd party who wanted to release more than 5 games a year in America. I wonder why Capcom or Namco didn't follow suit, whether out of fear or difficulty. Either way, it was Konami's gain for a few years.
Side note: can we take second to appreciate how developers pushed the Gameboy graphics wise? The difference between Super Mario Land and Contra Operation C is night and day.
It is strange that Nintendo didn't impose the same release cap on developers in Japan that it did in other markets. I know that the flood of Atari games didn't really crush the Japanese market the way it did the American one, but I'm not sure why they considered it to be a problem that couldn't happen there.
2:11 maybe that's why the company went under the or their consoles I should say because I think Atari still around making games I think I could be wrong
Maybe sometimes they had to throw things under the ultra brand because they ran out of their five game a year allotment for Nintendo and still had plenty of good games they wanted to put out....
5:12 I strongly disagree. TMNT1 on the NES is an extremely flawed game. There are some good times to be had to an extent but oh my god I cannot stand the dam. I hate the controls there and I hate that time limit and how hard it is to avoid taking damage because you're in a hurry. The respawning enemies is BS. It should not be a thing. And you're so dependent on Donatello's long staff but he's the only one with a weapon that long so if you lose him you do have Leonardo but then if you lose him you're basically screwed because your weapons not only inflict less damage with the other two turtles but they have shorter range. Look I grew up playing mostly TMNT 2 on the Game Boy back in the '90s and I also would later play TMNT1 on the Game Boy. I enjoyed both games. But since getting the cowabunga collection of my switch I still loved TMNT 2 on the Game Boy. That game is still amazing. However I tried playing TMNT1 on the Game Boy again and I actually didn't like it that much. It has not aged well and that goes the same way with the NES version of TMNT1. Sometimes you got to take off those nostalgia goggles Now I didn't grow up with the NES. I grew up at the SNES and Sega Genesis as well as the N64 and PS1 and of course the Game Boy. I didn't play The NES version of TMNT1 until I downloaded it to my Wii via the Wii virtual console. When I looked up footage of the game it looked interesting but then I played it and I tried to make the best out of it but it really is not that good of a game. It's definitely not the worst NES game not even close, but it's a bad game. Clearly Konami improved with the later TMNT games. And by the way I played TMNT1 for the NES on my Wii long before I watched AVGN
Absolutely correct about the nostalgia goggles. I played it when it came out on the NES, the dam and the constant slowdown were very annoying but if you played NES games when current the difficulty level was tame compared to other games of that time
In Europe Konami didn't use the Ultra brand but the Palcom brand instead.
What's strange is that in Europe Castlevania and Castlevania II were published under the Konami label but Castlevania III under the Palcom label.
pr9bably they published too many games as konami that year in europe
By Europe, do you mean mainland Europe?
Here in the UK, i'm 99% sure TMNT was released under Ultra...I've still got my cart upstairs and could check this, but too lazy to..!
@@andyc6542not from uk, but there's no such things as ultra games in europe (uk as well)
@@Megster_3000 the NES cart for TMNT is definitely branded with Ultra games / the in game logo before the game starts is also Ultra here in the UK..
@@andyc6542 i looked up and it doesn't have the ultra label, though unchanged in-game
Fun fact: inputting the "Konami Code" on the title screen of TMNT II: The Arcade Game will give you 30 extra lives just like it did for Contra, and LifeForce. But it wouldn't do anything special if used on TMNT or TMNT III: The Manhattan Project
Pretty sure that it only gave you 10 turtles, not 30.
How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh?
10
10 tickles
Tentacles
@@AndSaveAsManyAsYouCan: Also, the cheat codes for _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game_ were entirely different in the Japanese version of the game, which is simply called _TMNT_ because _TMNT1_ on the Famicom was released as _Gekikame Ninja Den_ .
@@Loader2K1 It was called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in some countries of the PAL region.
Lol cheat codes were literally just dev tools lol
@@pepeshadilay: I'm well aware of that. ;)
I think Konami had a good relationship with Nintendo and it was all probably a formality so other companies didn't feel like they were the only company getting special treatment. You should have mentioned that in PAL regions the alternative company was called Palcom and they released some games like Parodius and Road Fighter which weren't released in the US as well as Crackout which was a Famicom Disc System game in Japan.
I was gaming as a child when the NES was current. Everybody knew, at the time, that Ultra was actually Konami. The pause jingle sound is the same for both "brands". And Konami was the absolute best NES publisher, better than Nintendo. Their games still hold up.
Also, the games were always copyrighted to Konami and never Ultra (except of those simply published by Ultra and not made in-house by Konami), whose full company name was Ultra Software Corporation.
I don't know about being better than Nintendo, but they were awesome back then.
Capcom, Konami, Nintendo, and Tecmo were the ones I remember most
I never actually knew this. Mind you, I was a _very young_ child when the NES was current... 3 years old when the NES hit American store shelves in '86, 6 years old when my family got our NES in '89, and 8 years old when the SNES hit American store shelves in '91. I never had a clue about things like this until quite a while later. I only had the vaguest idea that even Tengen were doing anything cheeky.
Same here I'm 45 I had the Atari from my cousin s then that nes was a game changer
There's this European company Palcom Software which is quite similar. They operated from 1989 to 1993. Palcom Software had released games on the SNES.
Just like Ultra Games, Palcom Software was also created by Konami to allow more than 5 games per year.
Acclaim Entertainment created the Flying Edge and Arena Entertainment labels in order to release games on Sega consoles as a loophole to Nintendo's exclusivity deal.
Other video game companies also launched divisions for releasing games on non-Nintendo consoles, including the following:
Sage’s Creation: A division of Hot-B USA
Treco: A division of Sammy
Speaking of Arena Entertainment, before it was acquired by Acclaim in 1992, Arena was the US division of the England-based Mirrorsoft.
palcom? PAL company? at least they tried a LITTLE bit with the name for "ultra games" rofl. I wonder if that was established afterwards and konami already knew that nintendo didn't care. Now I can't stop picturing a game company called NTSCcom
When I read the title I thought this would be a video about how Konami bypassed the lockout to secretly publish unlicensed games, but I was very wrong! Forming a 2nd company to release more games honestly was a genius move!
No, it was Atari who did that.
the answer is simple. back then Nintendo would only allow 5 games a year from developers so that they wouldnt be just sole company putting out games
Yep, that's right. Barebone reason to not watch the video
What do you mean?
@@goatbone who, Matt or me
Watch the video goober
Sorry, Matt. I clicked reply but it doesn't tag them like it does for you.
5:57 the Manhattan Project why do I not remember that game. To be fair though back in the day I don't think I knew what the Manhattan Project was
Now I want "DMV Line: The Game"
The only game to make you wait for 2 hours before you're able to do anything.
@@IntegerOfDoom Unity might be overdoing it?
"Look".
'The line ahead of you could stretch forever, but you can't see around the rotund gentleman who smells faintly of french fries who has also found a way to consume most of your field of view.'
Court Hearing: The Game
@@jeffb.6642 You have to fight 52 minibosses in a row with 3 lives, just to get a number. Then you have to do some battle royale wrestling to get a seat in the waiting area.
Great video Pojr. Fun Fact: Konami wasn't the only company to do this. Acclaim used LJN. Would love to see a future video about Tengen. Great title could be: How Atari Made The First UNLICENSED Games For The NES.
Acclaim took this even further by releasing games on the Sega Genesis under the labels of Arena and Flying Edge.
Atari Games' beef with Nintendo's illegal restrictive & anticompetitive practices actually created the gaslighting Nintendo Seal of Approval. They claimed "unlicensed" games would actually Damage the NES while all the end user needed to do was clip Pin 4 of the 10NES chip.
Ljn and acclaim were different companies, Acclaim just had a publishing deal with them
3:32 I wonder if that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game is on the Cowabunga collection I think there's like 15 games on there again I could be wrong but there is a lot of old games on there
Rollergames didn't have characters exactly, it had teams. I'm not sure the team member ever changes, but it was supposed to represent teams from the show.
5:59 _"Hot Flash"_ sounds like a menopausal super-villain who really _really_ needs to see the manager
Seeing as Konami had the TMNT license, the expenses for setting up Ultra Games were negligible, they made their money back in spades.
Helped the TMNT games were huge sellers, and one was even a pack in bundle game in some European countries.
I am not even sure there were a lot of expenses since it's not like they printed another set of labels for each game, we have a store in Ukraine called Rozetka, it's an Amazon clone that only ships locally and they work with other shops. They have the same draconian Nintendo contract that brands that sell on their platform aren't allowed to sell on others. So EVERYONE makes a shell company to sell, and that includes guys who sell PC cables or mousepads.
Konami's excellent port of Gyruss -- which I had as a kid -- was also an Ultra-branded release for North America. An image of the Konami-branded Famicom release is shown in the video.
What Nintendo did back then is illegal today. They basically monopolized the devs with really strict contracts, which is why the other 8 bit competition did do so well (outside of the Gaming computers of the EU which in the UK outsold the Nintendo Entertainment System, as the NES was seen as a "Rich kid's toy" due to the prices.) Imagine if they, Microsoft, Sony did that today.. [Metaphorical] heads would be rolling in the legal battlegrounds.
Don't forget Sega tried to implement restrictions where they would be the publisher of all games on their new console. Needless to say that backfired hard.
It was illegal back then too. The only reason Nintendo dropped those policies was because they were the court systems eventually caught up with them. Forced them to quit.
What was illegal? We still have console exclusivity today...
It was illegal then and Nintendo settled with the US DOJ. The ridiculously weak settlement was just a coupon off a Nintendo game though ($10).
@@PeperonyChease no, forced exclusivity by third party devs. Nintendo forced anyone who made games for them, they could NOT make games for any other system. Which is why the Turbografix and Mastersystem had very small 3rd party development. Basically it was "Make games for us, and nobody else if you want games on our console." it was incredibly unfair for competitors and extremely unethical for Nintendo to pull that stunt.
Back when I was a kid I used to think that Ultra games were just like the "extreme" line of games by Konami, just like how back in the 1990s there were always "extreme" versions of snacks. Or kind of like how Lexus is upgraded Toyota and Genesis is upgraded Hyundai...in my idiotic adolescence I thought that Ultra was like the luxury line of Konami titles.
konami and nintendo were so tight knit by the time the NES released in america im pretty sure nintendo advised them to open up a seperate publishing house shell company.
They were both Japanese, likely why it didn’t matter.
There is tons of bias and racism in Japanese business.
I think Nintendo was closer to Hudson Soft actually.
Hey POJR, I was a kid in the 80s and I remember this pretty well. I could be wrong, but as a kid the perception that I had was that Ultra was like a prestige brand of Konami. You could kind of tell that Ultra and Konami had a relationship, somehow. There were telltale signs in the art direction and in particular the music.
It felt to me like Ultra's branding was reserved the the special titles that were extra-good. Games like TMNT, it wasn't that Konami thought that the TMNT brand was powerful enough by itself that it didn't "need" the Konami name behind it in order for it to sell; it was that they were signifying that TMNT was SO special that it was getting published under the Ultra Games label. Think of it like Lexus and Toyota, or Lincoln and Ford.
The 5 games/year limit was a real thing, though. But I didn't learn about that until sometime after. I think that came out during the anti-trust lawsuit against Nintendo for their monopoly practices during the NES era.
I’m surprised Nintendo approved Ultra Games as a third party developer. Didn’t anyone at Nintendo noticed the address and phone number of Ultra Games is the same as Konami?!😂
It didn’t matter. A lot of companies did this. They had to pay for a separate license, and kits, and it restricted junk releases still because it was not cheap to do this.
Not to mention the legal fees to setup another company with the country. Idk how much that is in Japan, but it’s a lot of work in US
They probably thought ultra was just licensing and localizing these games.
What does POJR mean/stand for? Additionally, great work in choice of topics and execution. Cheers!
8:24 I think I might know the reason. If I'm not mistaken on the NES itself the game was released by Konami so they changed the name back to Nemesis when they released it under their other company name ultra on the Game Boy to try to make it look more distinct and maybe prevent Nintendo from noticing
Nintendo knew about it before the company was formed. Konami received Nintendos blessing before Ultragames got off the ground. There wasn’t any dishonesty involved
5:10 "But sometimes it gets some hates because of angry reviewers" I understood that reference.
This is funny considering that Nintendo STOLE Donkey Kong and then went to court to remove the rights from the original creator. This was one of Nintendo's first moves in the video game space. Nintendo knew what they were willing to do to other creators to maintain their rights, and I think that's why they are overprotective of their brands and characters.
They're about the only brand that copyright strikes TH-camrs for videogame footage too.
Even tho I already knew this, it still bothers me that I have a copy of Nemesis for gameboy with the Ultra label while my Nemesis 2 copy has the Konami label. I know there is a release of the first game under the Konami label that was released in Germany tho, so I might have to grab it because of my stupid OCD.
TMNT receives harsh criticism because it has platforming issues (and literal bugs in the case of the underwater section) that make it much more frustrating and unforgiving to play than it needs to be. Not "angry reviewers".
It was a dig at AVGN, which is popular with modern retro community that grew up with internet guides and savestates, while James Rolfe made videos to vent about things that were frustrating as a kid without modern convenience.
I know because I also couldn't land that plane in Top Gun! XD And rarely went past 2nd level in Turtles, while the sequels were simple and fun beatemups we completed with friends in co-op.
It was Nintendo's response to all the shovelware that killed gaming in America during Atari's day. It seems draconian today, but back then there really was a need to ensure quality so consumers in America didn't feel burned again like they did during the video game crash of the 80s
And yet the Nintendo Seal of Quality and 10NES lockout chip did fuck all to stop shovelware from appearing on the NES. Even without factoring in the unlicensed games and Taiwanese bootlegs, there was still a ton of shovelware on the NES (i.e., anything LJN did). But the 10NES chip also prevented even LICENSED games from working. This was a problem for import gamers, as the Japanese Famicom didn't have the chip. Even licensed North American games would be locked out no thanks to the lockout chip. So retro gamers who play NES games on original hardware simply open up their consoles and cut one of the pins on the 10NES chip--problem solved.
@@DarDarBinks1986 I mean sure, you're not going to stop everything. But it really can't be overstated how saturated Atari was with clones and poorly produced games. Consumers at the time didn't have anything but magazines and maybe the recommendation of a store clerk in order to research. So while it was an imperfect solution in hindsight, at the time limiting production really was the best way to ensure quality. If you're only allowed to put out 5 games a year, sure you can make them all shovelware, but they won't sell (unless like LJN you license a popular property), so at the end of it all, they accomplished the goal by making sure there was more Mario, Megaman, and Contra then there was garbage and ensuring that while crap existed, it was by percentages more likely the blind consumer would end up with a decent-to-good quality game
They still have hundreds if not thousands of shovelware on their storefront.
It made sense then, and it wouldn't hurt to re-implement it again every now and then.
But - there were lots of bad games. !!!
@@DarDarBinks1986 I mean, it definitely helped. The NES didn't have as large of a proportion of awful games as preceding computers and consoles did. For the most part, "bad" NES games were, on the surface, just unfairly difficult, which most of the time was just because they were fairly faithful ports of arcade quarter-eaters. Or, because they had odd gameplay mechanics that weren't explained in-game, and people played them as rentals or secondhand purchases without the luxury of a user manual.
They _weren't_ ever bad for being clunky, barely-playable, or barely-recognizable multi-platform cash-grab messes.
For examples of arcade quarter eaters: Contra, Double Dragon, Battletoads, Karnov, 1942, and 1943. For examples of games with unclear mechanics for lack of tutorials: Little Nemo, RoboCop, and Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.
As much as it's a trope how modern games really hold your hand through early levels, it's kinda understandable, given how earlier games just threw you to the wolves assuming that you had either (a) played the game a few _dozen_ times at the arcade or (b) studied a user manual.
"Bad" NES games mostly weren't bad on their own merits, they were "bad" for their learning curves.
Are you familiar with the NES Konami game _Laser Invasion_ ? Hidden in the game's code is legal info that reveals that Konami of America was originally going to release the game under their Ultra subsidiary. Anyway, good video. I do wish that you could have went into more detail of the other games developed by Konami but published by Ultra Games like _Metal Gear_ , _Snake's Revenge_ , and _Mission: Impossible_ .
Fun fact: Konami using the Ultra Games branding as a trademark in the USA not only loophole Nintendo's policy, it also prevent Nintendo from trademarking that name for their 64-Bit console. For those who don't know before the N64 was a thing worldwide, it originally was going to be called the Nintendo Ultra 64 for NA and EU and the Famicom Ultra 64 for Japan but because Nintendo can't use the Ultra name in NA due to Konami's holding a trademark of that they just change it to the vaguely named N64 for all regions.
Are you sure that’s what happened? Common words, like “Ultra”, can’t be trademarked but “Nintendo Ultra 64” could be trademarked. I doubt a company like Konami, dependent on the Nintendo platform for their product, would rub them the wrong way. Plus, I’m sure Nintendo would have no problem taking Konami to court if they needed to.
This would imply that Konami knew Nintendo was working on a 64-bit 'Ultra' console as early as 1988. When Project Reality didn't start until 1993, maybe 1992 at the earliest. Where would have Konami gotten such insider information? Potentially subconscious information the developers didn't even know they were thinking of at that time?
That wasn't a fact, that was a rumor that Nintendo actually denied. They said that it was not renamed because of a trademark issue but for the sole purpose to use the same brand and logo for the world, unlike what they did with previous consoles by naming them something different in Japan.
That is not how copyright works. You cannot copyright common words or phrases. Second it is based of what you are selling. Ultra games would be different from Ultra bakery.
It wasn’t renamed cause of Konami, it was named ultra cause it was its code name, like katana was for Dreamcast.
It was named Nintendo 64 to be consistent with all Nintendo consoles of the time. (Aside from the handhelds)
12:42 kind of crazy if you think about it because Nintendo is very evil. But if both companies are bringing in money why stop it I just didn't know that there was an arcade Ninja Turtles game for the Nintendo I really wish I knew that back when I was a kid
The other theory I've heard for the Ultra Games branding is they're generally games that appeal to American sensibilities already. Metal Gear, Ninja Turtles, Skate or Die, and even stuff like Defender of the Crown and Pirates, whereas games that were core Konami, or a bit 'weirder' to Americans were Konami. But I don't even think that's perfect either.
I kinda thought that, too, in hindsight. The OG _Metal Gear_ on NES was pretty different at the time as well because it went against the grain of such action-oriented games on the NES like _Contra_ , _Jackal_ , _Commando_ , the _194X_ series, and _Bionic Commando_ , to name a few.
Dude, you must be researching day and night. Nice work, my man!!
I could be wrong but it seems like the only possible answer. The reason why Konami released some “top tier” games under the Ultra brand was to boost quarterly earnings for the company. Konami and Ultra might have been “separate” companies so to help finance their operations, Konami would send a great game to Ultra so that both companies could be financially independent.
7:02 also I'm curious are you using ROMs or are you actually using the cartridge itself
Acclaim pulled a similar trick, releasing additional games under the LJN label. It was slightly different, since LJN was originally a separate company and only became part of Acclaim after an acquisition, but they used it in much the same way, publishing additional titles beyond Nintendo's limits and licensed titles under the label. Those games were generally lower quality than Konami's though.
Awesome channel Pojr. Subbed
Nice video composition, and nice distillation of the story of why Nintendo went the way they did with game licensing for the NES. And this is the first time I've heard of the 5 game per year publishing limit, so thanks for that!
Also, yeah, Fall Of The Foot Clan was outrageously easy considering how brutal the original TMNT NES game was. Playing Fall Of The Foot Clan feels like playing a modern game on Very Easy mode: You just get into the rhythm and go through the motions and you'll beat it in less than an hour. And maybe that was even intentional: While NES games were meant to keep you engaged for hours and hours on your couch honing your skills, maybe even way back in the late '80s and early '90s, developers felt that pocket games were best enjoyed for shorter bursts on your lunch break or while waiting for a bus or train.
Can I ask what software you use to make these videos? Do you have a blog or anything talking about it?
Roller games feels al little slippery in the controls because you're on roller skates.
Something to consider for gameboy games is that when you were playing on a real gameboy back in the day, you were limited by battery life, lighting, and whatever situation you were able to play in as a kid. You really needed a game that you could potentially beat on a car ride to grandma's house. And the early games did not have battery backed up save, just passwords which could be annoying. I had both TMNT and Nemesis as a kid and I liked being able to jump into any level without entering a password.
You know, I've seen the Ultra Games logo but I never picked up on it before. All the games under that brand I have played, I already knew were Konami so it never even occurred to me that they had been rebranded.
It's worth mentioning that RollerGames, the TV show, was way different from the video game. There was no skating through jungles or jumping over pits, it was just a souped-up roller derby with a figure eight track instead of an oval. There _was_ an alligator pit in the first episode though. Still has theatrics though as the show had a sort of wrestling style kayfabe to it.
There was an arcade version of RollerGames that emulated the show's format better. Fitting considering, like any arcade game, it was designed to be played for a few minutes at a time while the NES version was made to be more of an adventure.
Considering the show only lasted for one season, it got quite a bit of merchandising. Besides the two games, there was also a pinball table, a CD album containing the theme songs used in the show, a magazine, and action figures!
cool video but
you need to put a de-esser on your dialogue track. the sibilance is painful!
Part of Gameboy TMNT's Replay value comes from trying to find the "Mini-Games/Special-Stages" without a Strategy guide or magazine.
I don't watch much VG content. But when I do, it's POJR! Your content is good, well-edited, and well-narrated.
11:42 yeah I was going to say how can you sue someone for making another company. Unless it's written in the contract that you can't make games for any other company. Then I feel like there is kind of a way around that where you have someone else open up the company then have the developers work both companies
A reason that 5 game rule was abolished is that by that time, Sega came out with the Genesis/Mega Drive, which became the first real competition that Nintendo had. Sega began getting more aggressive, and had some of their own good games in Sonic and Echo. Something else Sega did was to allow devs to create games with more mature themes and content, something Nintendo wasn't doing and continued to restrict even after they relaxed the 5 game rule. That meant that third parties just could go to Sega and have just as much success as they would have with Nintendo's consoles. Thus, Nintendo seemly had to make sure devs were happy now instead of trying to get a monopoly.
Bypassing regulations using shell companies: a tale as old as time.
I remember when Konami was starting to get ready to move from Illinois to California and they gave us all a heap of unopened games from the warehouse including a giant stack of whatever Ultra games were wanted. I thought it was Christmas.
Only one question did any ultra games use the Konami code?
The image you used for the 10NES is not the 10NES. You used a picture of the CIC in the Super Nintendo.
I'm so excited to have found this channel. Great watch! Subscribed.
Konami also produced under PALCOM in Europe, which saw games like Contra (with the name Probotector - and literally being Robocop) being released under Konami for the NES and PALCOM on the GameBoy. So theoretically, if Konami wanted to, they could have released at least 15 games in one year if they really wanted to, because Konami released their five games in both the U.S. and Europe under Konami, but used ULTRA in the U.S. and PALCOM in Europe, where they could have flooded the market.
I like your content! Consider yourself subscribed and I'm looking forward to more videos in the future 😅 I do have a question though. What music was used in the outro? It sounds like it's from a snes game, but I can't figure it out for the life of me
Entertaining and informative video. 👍
Some of these things I already knew but thanks to this video I know even more.
I was not ready for your hair.
That's very neat hair! ^^
I did know about Ultra games being Konami but didn't know they were sneaky like that.
Interesting stuff.
I would have liked to see an animated TV special or novel based on the TMNT The Arcade Game (on NES). It could flesh out the story and might explain why Shredder decided to lure the Turtles in by staging an arson attack on Channel 6, to try to score a media victory against them and having one of his mutants kidnap April O'Neil.
PS. I wondered why the TMNT don't have other TV stations in New York to turn to. April is not the only reporter the Turtles can befriend to help them against the Shredder and Dimension X and earn the city's trust.
Maybe some of these releases got the Ultra Games monicker because of the limit of 5 games Nintendo imposed. You'll have to see each game release date to see if Nemesis (for exemple) was a late year release, so they had to use a ultra games slot since all other konami-branded titles were already used.
The whole idea of Ultra was Nintendo's idea. Konami asked for an exception to the 5 games a year cap Nintendo gave their licenses and they said no. However, they said, there's nothing stopping you from obtaining a second license. The whole thing was written about in "Game Over" and there was nothing nefarious about it. Just good business for both companies.
I used to think the 5 games a year rule was a bit harsh on Nintendos side but I now know that coming out of the video game crash of the 80s that they were looking after their product and making sure only quality was being released and not quantity. Konami had to work around it because they were producing hit after hit. Not every publisher can say the same during this time period.
Charging 40$ for a pair of flip flops from an unknown channel is pretty crazy.
Buying a $40 pair of Flip-flops from ANY Channel is Crazy
Wearing flip flops are insane
It makes sense why Nintendo ignored it since the restrictions was to prevent the appearance of a crash through a single visible company flooding the market. Konami and Ultra is perceived as different companies on the surface and that was good enough.
By today's standards, the practices of limiting games the way Nintendo did on the NES seems overly strict and abusive. But given the quality of games on consoles before the NES, it was very much needed. Companies had to bring their best 5 games. Rather than flood the market with cheap games. I would point out that despite the limits, the NES Library was the most extensive of any console, even those that came after.
Its not something I would agree with a console company doing today, since the market doesn't require it now. But it was a necessary evil that encouraged video game companies to up their game, if you'll forgive the pun.
Not that it prevented Acclaim to make shovelware. They even did the same tactic as Konami, just buying up LJN & using them as another way to release a bunch of licensed games. Oddly enough, their LJN-published titles were usually of higher quality than Acclaim-published ones.
Good vid my dude, you'll hit 100k by the end of the year for sure.
Very well done. I always wanted to know the background of Ultra.
I'm glad Nintendo chilled out after the NES, I mean come on dude you can only make games for our console and that's it. That's messed up
That was because other there was so much crap being put out and Nintendo was a far better system at the time.
It was just after the video game crash. They did it to control the quality of the games on the NES. People didn't trust video games anymore after the vast number of garbage that was released on Atari, this was their solation. As well as the NES seal of quality.
that was actually a misunderstanding of the policy; you weren't allowed to release the same game for another console for, I think, 2 years. It prevented multiplats
meanwhile, Sega did not have such a policy and as a result got a bunch of exclusives simply because Nintendo had already blocked them
@@andrewcarlton6196 stop defending monopolists, there were much more crap with Nintendo Seal of Approval than on actual pirated multicarts that filtered out stuff. WAY more kusoge on NES than on yellow Famiclone cartridges.
Great to see yet another post! It looks like you’re gaining a pretty good following.
"If you're a developer." Shows a video editor.. LOL! That was great! And very good video...
1. Nobody who paid any attention was confused about Ultra being Konami. This wasn't a secret.
2. Nintendo was completely fine with this "loophole". They didn't have to license Ultra. The reason why other companies couldn't set up their own Ultra was because Nintendo didn't allow it.
3. Still, companies frequently licensed games to other publishers to release in the US. Galaga was released by Bandai, for example.
4. The decision to release on Ultra or Konami was sometimes based on a franchise, but they also had to consider which label had open slots on which platform.
I wonder how Nintendo didn't get wise to this? I mean it's glaringly obvious what they did.
It probably was bc Ultra may have been Konami's US divison acting as a seperate developer. international game devs have been doing this for years.
@@rionthemagnificent2971 not to mention I'm sure nintendo loved the extra money coming in and Konami was for the most part known for making good games
I imagine Nintendo knew and didn't care since Konami was making good games. I think the rule was more for companies like LJN.
@@jarvindriftwoodNo, because LJN is literally another example of this situation. Acclaim purchased LJN as a means of bypassing the 5-game limit. I'm pretty sure all Nintendo cared about was that both entities paid their licensing fees.
Konami wouldn't be the only company to do that. Acclaim did same when they released some of their NES game under the LJN brand
They must have dumped all their terrible games into Laughing Joking Numbnuts. Except Maximum Carnage and Separation Anxiety. Those were great.
What i am more curious about is when did Nintendo decide to change the license and if it was done to generate more sales for the Super Nintendo?
TMNT the Arcade Game was one of the best games on the NES. Not a very long game but it was fun to play. I built an arcade stick controller for my NES. Made an already amazing game even better.
5:12 Nah, man, as a kid I hated this game way before AVGN was a thing... it and Top Gun and Blaster tank thing by Sunsoft, they were extremely hard and confusing for a child. Nerd says what we felt as kids without guides or internet.
It’s been so long now, I don’t even care why or how they did what they did. I absolutely adored all the TMNT games back then as well as others. Good on them for finding a loophole, otherwise, we’d have missed out on some great games!
Thanks for putting in the research! I was always interested in why this was the case and now I know! Awesome! Great work!
I never got past the swimming stage on NES TMNT stage. Me and brother couldnt get further than that point. Mightve survived with 1 turtle on very low health but not much overworld play
we used to get so many games because it was relatively cheap to develop them.. today's business model is not great as these studios think they're making movies instead of games, they forget its about gameplay and not about hiring voice actors and having the latest graphics. Its supposed to be challenging and fun, not just put you on rails so you can move through a storyline. So they spend millions of dollars developing games, and they can't take any risks anymore. Especially the big north american companies.
I like the way you explain what type of game contra is as people who clicked don't already frigging know 😅
No mention of Palcom Software?
No, but I did make a video about PALCOM recently: th-cam.com/video/H8H7RMzARb0/w-d-xo.html
@@pojr great, thanks. I'll watch it now!
In the US it wasn't hard, in fact due to the case Atari vs Activision and the fallout from it that was a significant factor for the crash In 1983. It left all consoles vulnerable since then. Now Nintendo was smarter in the encryption locks to avoid having the same issue that Atari faced . Which has been a standard for all consoles since including updating the method for the locks.
Another thing regarding what consoles did and still do, in getting a game tested it costs thousands of dollars for each test. In fact COD2:BRO almost was scrapped because it almost didn't get past the QA testing for online by Activision.
In addition, Nintendo didn't allow a single company to publish 5 games a year. Due to what happened with Atari and the oversaturated market of their games. Nintendo only allowed 5 games each year to be released for the console when it was released. Later that might've increased but initially it was kept down for the console not for each publisher.
I could be wrong on this, but I believe that the exclusivity deal Nintendo was offering was a minimum of 2 years before you could then publish your games onto the other competitors' consoles.
Please, PLEASE, consider a sibilance reduction plugin for your audio mix. The words ending in "S" are very harsh on the listener's ears. Especially true when we are listening through headphones. I don't mean to critique such things, but I really think this change would go a long way to improve the production of your videos. Thanks.
The moment I saw this, I noticed the esses.
Of all remastered games ever made, the arcade version needs to be done.
Aren't you the singer for taking back sunday? ✋ .. I kid. 😊
They probably used that another name because Gradius was pretty firmly established as a Konami series by 1990.
Fall of the foot clan was the first Gameboy game I got! I played the crap out of it. Gyruss was one of my favorite NES games.
Acclaim/LJN did this as well. They took it further by creating the Arena and Flying Edge labels and released games on the Sega Genesis under those names.
Nintendo and its investors were initially weary of releasing a home video game console because of the great video game crash. Home video games were at the time considered a passing fad and the fear of the Nintendo's failure was real.
The Atari 2600 had been incredibly successful but Atari's market share seemed to evaporate overnight.
The downfall of the Atari 2600 was due to developers flooding the market with cheap low quality games. Many of which were clones of other games but slightly changed. Consumers are only interested in so many different versions of Pacman.
Meanwhile competitors to the 2600 like the Coleco Vision and Intellivision diluted the market and made the problem of too many bad games worse.
Retailers ended up with shelves flooded with terrible games and after a while people started to return them. Retailers concluded that video games had been a fad and dumped the product range, although in reality it was just due to over saturation. Contrary to popular belief ET for the 2600 wasn't the direct cause of the video game crash, it was just the most egregious example of the problem.
This is why the NES was released as the Famicom in Japan. It was intended to double as a Family Computer hence the name Famicom. The idea being that Nintendo could do something else with it if the games didn't sell. By the time they decided to release the NES in North America and Europe they new it was going to be a success and dropped the idea of it doubling as a personal computer.
The Seal of Quality and tight licensing rules served to both ensure the Nintendo titles met minimal quality standards and to line Nintendo's pockets with licensing fees.
Nintendo knew full well that Konami was using Ultra games to get around their rules, they just didn't care because Konami was consistently releasing good quality titles so releasing more than 5 games a year didn't matter. If they had released licensed games on par with LJN they probably would have had a word with them.
8:19 yeah but it's a Game Boy game I mean what would you expect it doesn't have a lot of memory to have 20 levels or 10 levels
Legally Konami met the Rules setting up a new company. If Nintendo had sued, they would have to admit unfair contracts and being questioned in court. That something the big N didn’t want to happen
It didn’t stop Nintendo from their business practices being questioned. Nintendo actually won nearly all those cases.
It really was mostly that Nintendo simply knew Konami made good games, so they shrugged their shoulders at Konami stretching the rules.
Ultra Games published a lot of good stuff! In addition to Metal Gear and Ninja Turtles, one of the most memorable Ultra games to me was Base Wars, and I always wished that it had gotten a SNES sequel! Also, I'm sure Konami wasn't the only 3rd party who wanted to release more than 5 games a year in America. I wonder why Capcom or Namco didn't follow suit, whether out of fear or difficulty. Either way, it was Konami's gain for a few years.
Thank You.
Side note: can we take second to appreciate how developers pushed the Gameboy graphics wise? The difference between Super Mario Land and Contra Operation C is night and day.
It is strange that Nintendo didn't impose the same release cap on developers in Japan that it did in other markets. I know that the flood of Atari games didn't really crush the Japanese market the way it did the American one, but I'm not sure why they considered it to be a problem that couldn't happen there.
Awesome video, never new about this. I was familiar with Ultra Games and that it was from Konami, but didn't know why. Thanks.
2:11 maybe that's why the company went under the or their consoles I should say because I think Atari still around making games I think I could be wrong
Maybe sometimes they had to throw things under the ultra brand because they ran out of their five game a year allotment for Nintendo and still had plenty of good games they wanted to put out....
5:12 I strongly disagree. TMNT1 on the NES is an extremely flawed game. There are some good times to be had to an extent but oh my god I cannot stand the dam. I hate the controls there and I hate that time limit and how hard it is to avoid taking damage because you're in a hurry.
The respawning enemies is BS. It should not be a thing. And you're so dependent on Donatello's long staff but he's the only one with a weapon that long so if you lose him you do have Leonardo but then if you lose him you're basically screwed because your weapons not only inflict less damage with the other two turtles but they have shorter range. Look I grew up playing mostly TMNT 2 on the Game Boy back in the '90s and I also would later play TMNT1 on the Game Boy. I enjoyed both games. But since getting the cowabunga collection of my switch I still loved TMNT 2 on the Game Boy. That game is still amazing. However I tried playing TMNT1 on the Game Boy again and I actually didn't like it that much. It has not aged well and that goes the same way with the NES version of TMNT1. Sometimes you got to take off those nostalgia goggles
Now I didn't grow up with the NES. I grew up at the SNES and Sega Genesis as well as the N64 and PS1 and of course the Game Boy. I didn't play The NES version of TMNT1 until I downloaded it to my Wii via the Wii virtual console. When I looked up footage of the game it looked interesting but then I played it and I tried to make the best out of it but it really is not that good of a game. It's definitely not the worst NES game not even close, but it's a bad game. Clearly Konami improved with the later TMNT games. And by the way I played TMNT1 for the NES on my Wii long before I watched AVGN
Absolutely correct about the nostalgia goggles. I played it when it came out on the NES, the dam and the constant slowdown were very annoying but if you played NES games when current the difficulty level was tame compared to other games of that time
its crazy how ultra konami games had such robust soundtracks/bgms. they were so good on the nes