Tengen

The story of Tengen is an interesting one, as it led the most interesting war against Nintendo over video games. Once a license, it soon defected and became Nintendo's arch enemy.

Tengen has its roots in the original arcade game company, Atari. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Atari made arcade games and home videogames and systems such as the 2600 and 5200. In 1984, Atari was split into two factions: Atari Corp., which was the home videogame division that would later bring out the 7800, Jaguar, and Lynx, and the arcade division, which became known as Atari Games. Soon Warner Communications, the parent company, sold Atari Corp. to Jack Trameil, but it retained the arcade division. Before long the two Ataris became completely separate entities.

The licensed version of NES Gauntlet

In the fall of 1987 the head of Atari Games, Hideyuki Nakajima, decided that their catalog of arcade games would make great home games. However his company couldn't publish home games with the Atari name since Atari Corp. was marketing the 7800 and XEGS systems so they needed a brand name for their home division. So he came up with the name Tengen, which comes from the Japaneses game Go (Tengen refers to the center spot on the board). Since the NES was the top system at the time, Nakajima met with Nintendo president Minoru Arakawa and recieved a license to make NES games. In 1988, Tengen released three licensed NES games based on arcade hits: Pac-Man, R.B.I. Baseball, and Gauntlet.

But soon, it became dissatisfied with Nintendo's third party policy. Nakajima wanted special licensing terms, feeling his comapny had more to offer, plus the company was out to port games to all the gaming platforms, not just the NES. Nintendo shot down their request saying all their licensees had to have the same agreement, and Tengen would be no exception. So while Tengen acted like another third-party company, its engineers were secretly working on a way to bypass the NES lock-out chip that kept unlicensed games from working on the system. They began to reverse engineer the chip and decipher the code required to unlock it, but with little success. Eventually Atari got the knowledge they wanted by illegaly obtaining the security chip from the Copyright Office, claiming they needed the information for a fictional lawsuit Nintendo "filed" against them. They found a way to get around the lock-out chip by copying the chip and placing it in their own cartridges.

Gauntlet in the standard Tengen cart

On December 12, 1988, armed with a knowledge of the NES security system, Atari sued Nintendo for $100 million, accusing it for practicing a monopoly in video games. They rereleased Pac-Man, R.B.I. Baseball, and Gauntlet in new rounded black cartridges, even though licensed copies were still around. The following month in January they officially broke off their agreement with Nintendo and released a string of titles in the Tengen carts. Tengen manufactured the cartridges themselves and wasn't subject to Nintendo's strict guidelines.

The majority of Tengen's library was made up of arcade hits like Pac-Mania, Ms. Pac-Man, Rolling Thunder, Klax and many others. Plus Tengen licensed some of Sega's arcade titles, such as Shinobi and After Burner, for release on the NES. Most of Tengen's games were of high quality, but there were a few duds such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Skull and Crossbones.

Nintendo did nothing until November 1989, when they fought back against Tengen hard. Nintendo countersued Tengen for breach of contract and copyright infringement, saying Tengen copied the security chip. This started a long series of legal battles between the two companies. Nintendo also warned the various retailers not to carry Tengen's games, threatening to reduce or hold up shipments of Nintendo products. Most of the retailers sided with Nintendo without question, since Nintendo was the biggest name in the toy industry, and they didn't want to risk not having NES games on their shelves.

Tengen's version of Tetris

One of the biggest cases involved a little puzzle game called Tetris. In 1989, both Nintendo and Tengen got the rights to make NES versions of Tetris in the US. Tengen got the rights from the European company Mirrorsoft, who distributed Tetris in Europe, while Nintendo got the rights straight from the Soviet Foreign Trade Association. Both companies released their versions for the NES, and they both sued each other in another court battle. It became clear that Mirrorsoft didn't have the legal right to grant the license, since the software house Andromeda, which gave them the license, only had the computer rights, not the consle rights, so Nintendo was the clear winner. All copies of Tengen Tetris were taken off the store shelves, and production of the game ceased. Tengen only sold 50,000 copies of their Tetris while Nintendo's Tetris went on to became a big hit for the company.

The battle between Nintendo and Tengen would drag on and on for years, while Tengen still made unlicensed games for the NES, including Klax and Road Runner. At the same time Tengen received Sega's third party seal and made legal games for Sega's Genesis and Game Gear. Teh war finally ended in 1994 when the lawsuits were finally settled, and Tengen was allowed to become a Nintendo licensee once again.

This didn't last long, as the ongoing court battles and defeats depleted Tengen financially to the brink of death. The end came near the end of 1994 when Warner Communications merged with Time Inc., forming Time-Warner. The new company consolidated the arcade and home divisions under one common name, Time-Warner Interactive, and the Tengen name disappeared off videogames forever. The Atari name still appeared on arcade games until 1996, when Time Warner sold Atari Games to Williams/WMS, which later sent it to Midway. Atari Games still exist today, having become Midway Games West in February 2000.

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