The history of the bitter feud between Atari and Nintendo. Play Value Episode “Atari vs. Nintendo” Dan: Nintendo and Atari, you would think these two video game pioneers would be the best of friends. But you really should not invite them to the same dinner party. Jeff: Atari was synonymous with video games for a long time, the way that Nintendo is now, and uh they fell off there throne. They made some miscalculations, they made some bad decisions and they weren’t the number one guy anymore Josh: But Nintendo took on Atari’s role and Nintendo’s success just like fueled the fires again, and gave Atari this last glimmer of hope that they could be back on top of the industry. Libi: Atari released the 7800, in an attempt to compete with Nintendo. And when that didn’t work out, Atari decided to drop the whole console thing, and said hey; alright we are just going to make games for Nintendo instead. Jeff: One of the reasons Atari fell from grace in the first place is just so many games were coming out it was impossible to keep track of what were the good ones and what were the ad ones. And the bad ones were so overwhelming that people just started to think that’s what videogames are, they are garbage. Libi: Nintendo wanted to reassure its customers that they were going to get good games from them. So what they did was decided to put the Nintendo seal of quality on their games. And then limited other companies and told them hey you can only make five games a year for our console. TJ: So you have to pick the five best games, because we are not going to flood our console with crappy games. We saw what it did to Atari, we have seen the past and we don’t want that. We want to have some kind of quality control. Jeff: So Nintendo says no more than five games a year, and in order to ensure that happens they put a security system in Nintendo called the 10 NES code. And what it is, is kind of a lock and key system. Where there is a special chip in the Nintendo games that matches a special chip inside the Nintendo. And if both aren’t present a game doesn’t start. Josh: When a cartridge was put into the console they communicated, and it was like this is a real game, this isn’t a real game. If it was a real game you could play it, if it wasn’t a real game, meaning authored by Nintendo, it wouldn’t play. Libi: So by limiting companies to only creating five games a year for their system, they really did ensure that they got the best games from those companies. Jeff: The companies didn’t like being limited to five games a year. But because they were, you see some of the games that come out here are some of the best games ever. Capcom is releasing Mega Man, Bionic Commando, Ghost and Goblins. Konami is putting out stuff like Contra, stuff like Castlevania, Metal Gear, and Gradius. There are just so many great games that even today they still make sequels to. Because they were so good that even twenty years later people still want Castlevania's because of those first few. TJ: Ok when Atari gets this news that Nintendo’s only going to allow them five games Atari is like wow, wow, wait a minute. We invented video games, w invented the home console. You’re not going to limit us to five. Dan: Nintendo says listen, you guys were first, we respect that but you got to play by the same rules as everybody else. Atari was not happy with this at all. TJ: It’s all on ego. Atari couldn’t stop third party providers from making crapware for their system. So when Nintendo tries to do it they are like wow, we couldn’t do it, what makes you think you can do it. Oh you guys add a secret code, damnit why didn’t we come up with secret code? Jeff: Atari wants special rules they want to put out more games, Nintendo says no. This goes back and forth for months, finally Atari says fine. So Atari through there subdivision Tengen, puts out three games, RBI baseball, Gauntlet, and Pac Man. And that is going to be the end of it. We will just keep moving and see how it goes. Maybe we will put out more games, maybe we won’t, you know? No big deal. TJ: Now this is were the story gets good. Because secretly Atari as a plan. All the Atari execs sit around and say ok, we are going to play by the rules. We are going to give them their five games, but we are going to break this code, we are going to find out what this secret Nintendo code is. Josh: Atari at first tried to hack the system. Bought a bunch of NES’s cracked them open gave hem to their best programmers. Monitored how the software interacted with the software in hopes of finding that unique little trigger that they could then bypass when they made their own game. Jeff: You know they tried to look at it and see what information was being sent back and forth. They were like we will steal this the correct way. But when that failed they were like alright, ok we will just take it from the copy right office. TJ: Atari goes to the copyright office and they submit a request to see the Nintendo code. Well the copy right office, fine why do you need to see the code? Atari said we are sued by Nintendo and in order for our legal team to create a proper defense we have to see what this code is, so that we can then fight this legal battle. Copyright office doesn’t know, so what do they do, they release the code to them. Jeff: This isn’t like one rogue Atari employee who is trying to rung Nintendo. This is an entire corporation, committing a major crime, really a very elaborate scheme to try and break the rules and then try to change them retroactively. TJ: So now Atari is sitting on the secret Nintendo code, and then in turn they sue them for 100 million dollars. They sue them for 100 million dollars because they have been monopolizing the industry. Dan: Nintendo they weren’t going to take this lying down, they said we are going to take this to the street. This is a street fight. So they went to all the toy retailers and they said listen. We got this tiff going on with Atari we will tell you what’s going to happen. If you carry any of their stuff, then you’re not going to get anymore Nintendo stuff, so no matter who wins these lawsuits. Nintendo still wins, Nintendo for the win. The fact is that Nintendo just owned the market, they dominated toy stores, and they are accounting for half of a store like Toys R Us’s profits. The court case took awhile to drag on but the results are just meaningless. Because Nintendo just bullied Atari out of stores. They had that much clout. They kind of were operating like a monopoly. There are warehouses full of games that people would have bought, but no ones going to sell them because they didn’t want to upset Nintendo. Josh: I mean basically Atari now needed to win this lawsuit against Nintendo. Everything rode on this, because they weren’t making any money in the market place with these games. Jeff: What happens next, because they so clearly stole it in a, a sneaky and underhanded way. I mean kind of like a Boris and Natasha style plot. Because of the way they got this they don’t do very well in court. Josh: Atari brought a fair and valid antitrust argument to bear. But completely ruined there credibility by engaging in theft, in copyright theft. TJ: But it never even got to that. Case was dropped, they settled out of court. Atari ultimately paid Nintendo something for stealing from them, and then Atari disappears. Jeff: Eventually the code was cracked as all codes are, and one person was making games, Wisdom Tree who put out some classics like Sunday Fun Day. Libi: And basically they hacked a secret code and they made Bible games. And so Nintendo heard about it and they were like man, do we really want to sue these guys. You know we are trying to tell parents that games aren’t the devil, but then we are trying to sue a church, un uh, I don’t think so, Tj: Nintendo in the true fashion of the Bible decided that they were just going to turn the cheek on this one and let Wisdom Tree do there thing. Jeff: This whole story is the beginning of a lot of bad blood between Nintendo and Atari, and it would continue for many years. But it was never really a big deal, just because Atari was never any competition. Atari always wanted to be, what Sega would eventually become, which is a real second company, with a real strong chance at dethroning the king.