Topic: Nintendo doesn't own the rights to the Donkey Kong arcade code

[vudu]

Thanks to Retronauts, I recently learned that Nintendo doesn't own the rights to the code for the Donkey Kong arcade game.  Linky.

[The company] Ikegami Tsushinki was involved with developing arcade games.  Among those games was Radar Scope, which Ikegami designed and developed for Nintendo. The game was popular briefly in Japan, ... but by the time units reached the States, any buzz surrounding the game had dissipated ....

Yamauchi assigned a young Shigeru Miyamoto with designing a new game using the Radar Scope hardware. What Miyamoto came up with was Donkey Kong. Nintendo decided to work with Ikegami, which had the technology to program it. Ikegami wrote all the code and sold Nintendo 8,000-20,000 PCBs (Nintendo copied 80,000 without permission). Since there was no contract between Ikegami and Nintendo, Nintendo did not have the source code. But Nintendo wanted a sequel, so DK was disassembled and reverse engineered (through subcontractor Iwasaki Giken) and soon came Donkey Kong Junior (noted as being the first Nintendo game developed entirely in-house). In 1983, an angered Ikegami sued Nintendo for ¥580,000,000 for copyright infringement, claiming it owned the original DK code. In 1990, the two companies settled out of court. The details of that were not released to the public. In another trial that year, it was determined that Nintendo did not hold the copyright to the DK code.

There you have it--the reason why we're not getting the arcade version of Donkey Kong on the Virtual Console.  Maybe someone will finally quit complaining about it every chance he gets.

[BlackNMild2k1]

now can you post excerpts stating that Nintendo doesn't own Rare or the code to any of their games so that the same may happen with that topic too.

[MegaByte]

To tie both of those together, Donkey Kong 64 includes the arcade version of Donkey Kong!

[Kytim89]

So this entire thing is just one cluster of a bad situation for Nintendo?

[King of Twitch]

Oh man, it gets worse later in the article:

To make matters worse, a French company named Virtua l'Consol which specializes in online massages, had patented the name Virtual Console all along and as part of their settlement, there will be no more Virtual Console games of any kind.

 

[Mop it up]

This is probably one reason why Nintendo became very cautious on the legal side of things, making sure to cover themselves in every way they can.

How did the arcade version of Donkey Kong appear in Donkey Kong 64? Is there a story behind that?

[ThePerm]

it probably got rewritten, Rare used to go the distance for things like that

[TJ Spyke]

I have my doubts about the truth of this. For one, I doubt Nintendo would be that stupid. Two, most of the time programmers have zero ownership over products they develop for others (as they were working on it for Nintendo). Three, a major story like this would have been made public sooner than 20 years after the settlement.

[SixthAngel]

I have my doubts about the truth of this. For one, I doubt Nintendo would be that stupid. Two, most of the time programmers have zero ownership over products they develop for others (as they were working on it for Nintendo). Three, a major story like this would have been made public sooner than 20 years after the settlement.

I agree with all your points except number one.  When DK was made Nintendo was small time and didn't have enormous console experience not the money for endless lawyers.  DK was Nintendo's first big hit.

[UncleBob]

I have my doubts about the truth of this. For one, I doubt Nintendo would be that stupid. Two, most of the time programmers have zero ownership over products they develop for others (as they were working on it for Nintendo). Three, a major story like this would have been made public sooner than 20 years after the settlement.

I dunno... Nintendo did some really "stupid" things back in the day.

[NWR_insanolord]

I can't believe Yamauchi would let something like that get past him.

[UncleBob]

Go read Game Over.  There were so many times that Nintendo came this || close to getting screwed over from some silly mistake they made here or there and someone took them for a ride because Nintendo simply didn't know the business at the time.

In fact, some of the various ways they got screwed over have directly effected the way they operate the company now.

[Mop it up]

I need to check out this book titled "Game Over," I have seen a number of people mention it as of recent. Sounds like I might learn something interesting from it.

[TheBlackCat]

Oh man, it gets worse later in the article:

To make matters worse, a French company named Virtua l'Consol which specializes in online massages, had patented the name Virtual Console all along and as part of their settlement, there will be no more Virtual Console games of any kind.

 

It is not possible to patent names, only inventions and processes can be patented.  Names have to be trademarked.

[King of Twitch]

Oh man, it gets worse later in the article:

To make matters worse, a French company named Virtua l'Consol which specializes in online massages, had patented the name Virtual Console all along and as part of their settlement, there will be no more Virtual Console games of any kind.

 

It is not possible to patent names, only inventions and processes can be patented.  Names have to be trademarked.

[UncleBob]

I need to check out this book titled "Game Over," I have seen a number of people mention it as of recent. Sounds like I might learn something interesting from it.

I highly recommend it.


I got mine from this guy (unsigned, of course) and it came in great condition, dust jacket and all.  Before, I had checked it out from the library.  Either way, well worth the read.  It was really neat to read this book back when the Wii was coming out - a lot of what Nintendo went through then seemed mirrored by what they went through during the early NES days.

[Adrock]

Oh man, it gets worse later in the article:

To make matters worse, a French company named Virtua l'Consol which specializes in online massages, had patented the name Virtual Console all along and as part of their settlement, there will be no more Virtual Console games of any kind.

 

It is not possible to patent names, only inventions and processes can be patented.  Names have to be trademarked.

Lulz

Thanks for that.

[ThePerm]

hehe Gameover, i remember liking the book so much I bought copies of it and sent it to PGCers who didn't have it. in fact....



here is an old picture of me with the good book

[UltimatePartyBear]

Two, most of the time programmers have zero ownership over products they develop for others (as they were working on it for Nintendo).

Usually, the copyright is handed over per the terms of a contract.  There was no contract.

[Chozo Ghost]

Has anyone here ever seen the King of Kong documentary?

[ThePerm]

verbal contract is usually enough in Japan, but in the U.S. copyright from contract for hire has to be written.