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Licensed NES Games not Manufacturered by Nintendo


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Homebrew Team · Posted

@ecmyers had a post up on Twitter about The Simpsons: Bartman Meets Radioactive Man! and showed a picture of the back of the shell.  "Manufactured by Acclaim.  Licensed by Nintendo.  Made in U.S.A."  Has me wondering how often this happened, licensed 3rd party manufacturing on the NES.  Besides Tengen.  Maybe there is a list somewhere I don't know about.

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Virgin

  • Overlord

Hi-Tech Expressions

  • Mickey’s Safari in Letterland
  • Rollerblade Racer

Acclaim / LJN

  • Alien 3
  • George Foreman’s KO Boxing
  • Incredible Crash Test Dummies
  • Roger Clemens’ MVP Baseball
  • Simpson’s, The: Bart vs. the World
  • Simpson’s, The: Bart meets Radioactiveman
  • Smash TV
  • Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
  • Town & Country Surf Designs: Thrilla’s Surfari
  • Terminator 2: Judgement Day
  • Wizards & Warriors III
  • WWF: King of the Ring
  • WWF Wrestlemania: Steel Cage Challenge

 

Not sure about Sunsoft and Konami. I think they just made their own boards at some point but I’m pretty sure Nintendo did the rest.

Edited by ThePhleo
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8 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

Virgin

  • Overlord

Hi-Tech Expressions

  • Mickey’s Safari in Letterland
  • Rollerblade Racer

Acclaim / LJN

  • Alien 3
  • George Foreman’s KO Boxing
  • Incredible Crash Test Dummies
  • Roger Clemens’ MVP Baseball
  • Simpson’s, The: Bart vs. the World
  • Simpson’s, The: Bart meets Radioactiveman
  • Smash TV
  • Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
  • Town & Country Surf Designs: Thrilla’s Surfari
  • Terminator 2: Judgement Day
  • Wizards & Warriors III
  • WWF: King of the Ring
  • WWF Wrestlemania: Steel Cage Challenge

 

Not sure about Sunsoft and Konami. I think they just made their own boards at some point but I’m pretty sure Nintendo did the rest.

Konami definitely made their own PCB's. They were actually much easier to use when making hacks and such back in the day because they used a different pinout on their chips that made for any easier swap and also a different chip orientation so stuff fit better.

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On 10/15/2020 at 9:45 PM, ThePhleo said:

Virgin

  • Overlord

Hi-Tech Expressions

  • Mickey’s Safari in Letterland
  • Rollerblade Racer

Acclaim / LJN

  • Alien 3
  • George Foreman’s KO Boxing
  • Incredible Crash Test Dummies
  • Roger Clemens’ MVP Baseball
  • Simpson’s, The: Bart vs. the World
  • Simpson’s, The: Bart meets Radioactiveman
  • Smash TV
  • Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
  • Town & Country Surf Designs: Thrilla’s Surfari
  • Terminator 2: Judgement Day
  • Wizards & Warriors III
  • WWF: King of the Ring
  • WWF Wrestlemania: Steel Cage Challenge

 

Not sure about Sunsoft and Konami. I think they just made their own boards at some point but I’m pretty sure Nintendo did the rest.

 

On 10/15/2020 at 2:08 PM, RH said:

Konami definitely did.  I don't know about others.

 

On 10/15/2020 at 2:04 PM, Tulpa said:

Acclaim definitely. I want to say Sunsoft and Konami also made their own, IIRC.

 

On 10/15/2020 at 2:00 PM, fcgamer said:

I think Acclaim might have done several of these. Before reading down through your post , they were the company that came to my mind. Cool stuff 😎

For Everyone's reference some pics, these are representative I know Konami made a number of different mapper versions, don't remember if Acclaim did

Edit: Found them Acclaim did do a couple of mapper versions

An Acclaim PCB

image.png

A Konami PCB

image.png

 

Sunsoft I think only did one in the US for Return of the Joker

image.png

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17 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

 

 

 

For Everyone's reference some pics, these are representative I know Konami made a number of different mapper versions, don't remember if Acclaim did

Edit: Found them Acclaim did do a couple of mapper versions

An Acclaim PCB

image.png.d7c0546e709506d88147612bc7e28f99.png

A Konami PCB

image.png.22591c6b72b9f087ce718836dab784d9.png

 

Sunsoft I think only did one in the US for Return of the Joker

image.png.943262c88cdac88b4920562255051a0e.png


interesting! so not only did Konami and Sunsoft make the boards, but they also made the chips themselves and probably populated the PCB as well!

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Homebrew Team · Posted
5 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

Also I know people were questioning if bootgod would come back, if people are still looking for the info

https://web.archive.org/web/20140408205949/http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/search.php?browse=@

 

Some posted somewhere else on the forum that a mirror was hosted here as well:

https://nescartdb.com/

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1 hour ago, ThePhleo said:

Virgin

  • Overlord

Hi-Tech Expressions

  • Mickey’s Safari in Letterland
  • Rollerblade Racer

Acclaim / LJN

  • Alien 3
  • George Foreman’s KO Boxing
  • Incredible Crash Test Dummies
  • Roger Clemens’ MVP Baseball
  • Simpson’s, The: Bart vs. the World
  • Simpson’s, The: Bart meets Radioactiveman
  • Smash TV
  • Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
  • Town & Country Surf Designs: Thrilla’s Surfari
  • Terminator 2: Judgement Day
  • Wizards & Warriors III
  • WWF: King of the Ring
  • WWF Wrestlemania: Steel Cage Challenge

 

Not sure about Sunsoft and Konami. I think they just made their own boards at some point but I’m pretty sure Nintendo did the rest.

These are the four companies I'm aware of that did it. Overlord even had it's own CR2032 battery.

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Konami never made their own pcb's for US NES; they made their own chips (sometimes) and they were populated on Nintendo boards.  The question is: did Konami send their chips to Nintendo to have them assembled there (likely, since everything else in US-released Konami games, like the cartridge casings, is manufactured by Nintendo) or did Nintendo send Konami the blank boards (unlikely, for reasons mentioned above)?

As for Acclaim, they also manufactured a number of LJN titles after they bought the company.

Sunsoft only manufactured one US game themselves: Batman: Return of the Joker, and Virgin as well only made one game themselves: Overlord.

I've never seen a master list, but since I have all but 14 US releases CIB, I could come up with a complete list if I wanted to spend the time looking at the back label of 800-odd cartridges.   Maybe some weekend I will when I've got nothing better to do...

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12 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

Virgin

  • Overlord

Hi-Tech Expressions

  • Mickey’s Safari in Letterland
  • Rollerblade Racer

Acclaim / LJN

  • Alien 3
  • George Foreman’s KO Boxing
  • Incredible Crash Test Dummies
  • Roger Clemens’ MVP Baseball
  • Simpson’s, The: Bart vs. the World
  • Simpson’s, The: Bart meets Radioactiveman
  • Smash TV
  • Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
  • Town & Country Surf Designs: Thrilla’s Surfari
  • Terminator 2: Judgement Day
  • Wizards & Warriors III
  • WWF: King of the Ring
  • WWF Wrestlemania: Steel Cage Challenge

 

Not sure about Sunsoft and Konami. I think they just made their own boards at some point but I’m pretty sure Nintendo did the rest.

 

9 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Konami never made their own pcb's for US NES; they made their own chips (sometimes) and they were populated on Nintendo boards.  The question is: did Konami send their chips to Nintendo to have them assembled there (likely, since everything else in US-released Konami games, like the cartridge casings, is manufactured by Nintendo) or did Nintendo send Konami the blank boards (unlikely, for reasons mentioned above)?

As for Acclaim, they also manufactured a number of LJN titles after they bought the company.

Sunsoft only manufactured one US game themselves: Batman: Return of the Joker, and Virgin as well only made one game themselves: Overlord.

I've never seen a master list, but since I have all but 14 US releases CIB, I could come up with a complete list if I wanted to spend the time looking at the back label of 800-odd cartridges.   Maybe some weekend I will when I've got nothing better to do...

I believe this list is pretty much complete. If there are questions regarding individual games that are not obviously visible on eBay, I have the full set minus SE.

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It'd take time, but it wouldn't be to hard to search for more of these for those with complete/near-complete cart sets.

No, I certainly wouldn't want to crack open a bunch of CIB games, but since they are stamped on the shells, you wouldn't have to open them up until you see the difference on the shell.

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12 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Konami never made their own pcb's for US NES; they made their own chips (sometimes) and they were populated on Nintendo boards.  The question is: did Konami send their chips to Nintendo to have them assembled there (likely, since everything else in US-released Konami games, like the cartridge casings, is manufactured by Nintendo) or did Nintendo send Konami the blank boards (unlikely, for reasons mentioned above)?

As for Acclaim, they also manufactured a number of LJN titles after they bought the company.

Sunsoft only manufactured one US game themselves: Batman: Return of the Joker, and Virgin as well only made one game themselves: Overlord.

I've never seen a master list, but since I have all but 14 US releases CIB, I could come up with a complete list if I wanted to spend the time looking at the back label of 800-odd cartridges.   Maybe some weekend I will when I've got nothing better to do...

If Konami didn't make the boards did they design them or something? They were the only only that used that style of boards with the chips oriented like that, that I'm aware of. Seems weird Nintendo would manufacturer specific boards for them when they already had boards of the same mapper.

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1 hour ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

If Konami didn't make the boards did they design them or something? They were the only only that used that style of boards with the chips oriented like that, that I'm aware of. Seems weird Nintendo would manufacturer specific boards for them when they already had boards of the same mapper.

That is a valid point, but the PCBs with Konami chips still have the Nintendo logo on them (see upper right corner of the Konami pic you previously shared in this thread), while the Acclaim and Sunsoft boards do not.

Edited by DoctorEncore
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13 hours ago, RH said:

Now I really, really  need to get ROTJ.  I've developed a strong preference towards Sunsoft since I started collecting in 2016.  There games are/were stellar and they only one I paid attention to as a kid was Batman.

Not only does it have the Batman license, but it's also got the greatest background graphics on the NES 😉

I just took a cursory glance at my wall of games and, since I have it organized by publisher, yeah it seems the list posted just may be complete once ROTJ by Sunsoft is added to it.  I'd want to first double-check all Acclaim and LJN titles though...

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19 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

That is a valid point, but the PCBs with Konami chips still have the Nintendo logo on them (see upper right corner of the Konami pic you previously shared in this thread), while the Acclaim and Sunsoft boards do not.

 

16 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

Companies that own the design of the circuit board are the ones who put their name on the board.

Also, the Ⓜ symbol on the back labels indicates copyright for circuitry much like how the © symbol indicates general copyright.

 

So I'm going to take a stab at what went down in this situation then. When Nintendo started letting companies provide their own chips during the shortage, Konami found a supplies of chips that would work but had a different pinout. Unlike Acclaim or Sunsoft, for some reason Konami didn't have the ability/talent/access to manufacturing of the boards and asked Nintendo to make a tweaked design for them which resulted in the new  design. That's my plausible explanation

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