I was browsing the Quasar diskmagazines at our downloads database and spotted a nice rumour. In those days, many rumours were spread by dskmagazines, most of them were only partly true. But this one has got quite some credibility, so I'd like to know if some people know more about this.

Supposedly Nintendo and Konami had a deal about the release of several software titles. Part of the deal was that a certain MSX game was not to be distributed before a certain release date. Konami did distribute this game earlier than expacted and for that Nintendo supposedly sued Konami, forcing them not to release new MSX games for an entire year. After that year MSX wasn't commercially interesting anymore.

Again, it probably is 'just another rumour', but I'd like to know what you think about it and if you heard more about it.

My guess is that, despite Nintendo's agressive techniques, this rumour isn't true.

If this is true, Nintendo would be a lot like Microsoft. It would be an explanation Konami never releasing a turbo R specific title. Though I think it's somewhat farfetched.

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Again, it probably is 'just another rumour', but I'd like to know what you think about it and if you heard more about it.

yeah, rumour propably..or there are some silly laws in japan..

I has nothing to do with laws, it has to do with Nintendo contracts.

Square was forbidden to make any games for non-Nintendo consoles for a LOOOONG time.

This rumour could very well be true.
I don't feel like going in to this now, but snout is free to dig up the IRC log of us discussing this and post some of it

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I has nothing to do with laws, it has to do with Nintendo contracts.

yeah, and the law supports such a contract. ok, law or no law.. it's ridiculous to forbid some company to do what they want IMO! *#%&*$# commercial morons, in case it's true...

When Square finally got out of the Nintendo contract, they continued the Final Fantasy series on Playstation. Starting with FF7, because NINTENDO didn't want to release the other FF's on NES/SNES in the USA ro europe back then...
It took several years before Square got back enough confidence in Nintendo to produce games for them again.

Microsoft forbids some companies to produce for other consoles than Xbox too. These are all common practices in game-land... It sucks, and it sucks even more if you're working in it.

Nintendo has really loosened up over the years... Unfortunately the quality of 3rd party games has decreased because of that. But that's true for other consoles too...
Anyway, nowadays it's mostly Microsoft and Sony strongarming the developers (AND the retail shops!!).

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Microsoft forbids some companies to produce for other consoles than Xbox too. These are all common practices in game-land... It sucks, and it sucks even more if you're working in it. Nintendo has really loosened up over the years... Unfortunately the quality of 3rd party games has decreased because of that. But that's true for other consoles too... Anyway, nowadays it's mostly Microsoft and Sony strongarming the developers (AND the retail shops!!).

it's obviouly a good thing that they "loosened up" (as a true weed-smoker, i love "loosened up and relaxed (let's say) objects. people companies whatever). a relaxed atmospere in professional sense also creates a better work environment and that leads to better results and many more positive things come from it.

as a programmer, i cannot live with demands that prevent innovation. creating games for more consoles IS innovative IMO. maybe i've chosen the wrong profession... dumb demands are demanded everywhere. "don't do this, don't do that. no, there is no need to make it better because there is a time limit, remember?" blah blah blah.... prohibiting a company to release games (to be on topic) is just the same thing IMHO.

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>>I has nothing to do with laws, it has to do with Nintendo contracts.<< yeah, and the law supports such a contract. ok, law or no law.. it's ridiculous to forbid some company to do what they want IMO! *#%&*$# commercial morons, in case it's true...

As Guyver pointed out it is a common practise in gaming land, why do you think Pro Evolution Soccer and Gran Turismo never appear on other consoles? Sony pays big bucks to keep these titles exclusive. Sometimes a developer just has a love for a certain console but most of the time it's exclusivity contracts. Like Xyanide, a shooter for the X-Box by Dutch developer Playlogic is an exclusive X-Box title which means they are not allowed to port it for a year. A company, any company, will choose the path that makes the most money. So if Nintendo and Konami had such an agreement, I am sure they were both happy with it. The fact that Konami never made a Turbo-R title has nothing to do with such an agreement anyway, it simply wasnt commercially interesting.

Indeed... nowadays deals like this are not rare at all. However, do you believe Konami had such a deal with Nintendo?

We're talking early 90's here, around 7 years after Nintendo started its empire. They were big, and they were nasty. Do the math

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Indeed... nowadays deals like this are not rare at all. However, do you believe Konami had such a deal with Nintendo?

No I don't think they did, a bit because Konami doesn't do much exclusivity dealing at all, but mainly because the Big 'N' wouldn't be so dumb to spend an [x] amount of money to get a developer not to develop for the MSX anymore when it was already going downhill. Why spent money to make something happen that will happen anyway? Perhaps they made a deal with Konami to stay away from Sega's ventures, but that has nothing to do with MSX.

I think Konami would have quit development on MSX much earlier on, if there weren't some MSX minded people there. Really, with the NES and so on with much higher sales figures and XX times more profit, there was really no other reason left to develop for MSX. I recently read some articles about the end of PC games, because for the current PC versus the consoles the same rules apply.

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I think Konami would have quit development on MSX much earlier on, if there weren't some MSX minded people there. Really, with the NES and so on with much higher sales figures and XX times more profit, there was really no other reason left to develop for MSX. I recently read some articles about the end of PC games, because for the current PC versus the consoles the same rules apply.

Well it's a fact that PC development has been going downhill over the last year, nevertheless it is still such a massmarket I hardly believe it will stop. I do think PC games will focus more and more on online play only, with monthly fees. But that is yet another discussion

I think Konami kept going on MSX since it was slightly profitable and any company needs time to prepare itself to develop for new or other platforms. My guess is that the last few MSX projects by Konami weren't profitable anyway, but canning them would have been more expensive than finishing em...thank god