How Konami Cleverly BYPASSED Nintendo in Europe

You may know about Konami’s second company, Ultra Games. This was their way of releasing more games without breaking Nintendo’s rules. You may not know, however, that Konami also tried this same tactic in Europe. But they would make some very interesting decisions with this new branding.

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Chapters:

0:00 Introduction
0:45 Release of NES
2:11 Nintendo’s Policies
3:19 Ultra Games and PALCOM
4:32 Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles
5:37 Castlevania III
6:15 Parodius
7:25 Bucky O’Hare
8:41 Probotector (GB)
9:45 Conclusion
10:32 Nintendo’s Response
11:00 Outtro

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#nintendo #konami #retrogaming

[Larry]

Ultra Games are also the reason why Nintendo had to rebrand the Ultra 64 to the Nintendo 64... Trademark issues.

[battra]

Thanks for defending TMNT. Those of us who grew up with it loved it but knew how it was frustrating at times. The AVGN video was funny if you already knew the game. Too many people missed the joke and thought his criticisms should be taken seriously

[tractorman]

A theory I’ve heard is Palcom had more name recognition in Europe than Konami did. Large in part to the release of Ninja Turtles under the Palcom label. The release of the Turtles in Europe was huge and led to tons of nes’s being sold in Europe. It was even bundled with the nes there at one point. So Palcom after that had a lot of name recognition, even more so than Konami.

[PhilipMarcYT]

If you notice PAL games running slow, that's because they were 50Hz than 60Hz.

[nexhep]

"the game can be very troll-y at times"

brotha, it's easier to name NES-era games that *weren't* troll-y than ones that were 😂 (but that's part of that NES charm)

[ThunderFist]

I don’t know if this is the case with Palcom, but Ultra Games had a different address than Konami in the late 80s, so it was easy to think that they could be different companies, whereas by 1990, both were using the same address, so the secret was pretty much over by then. By the way, I have visited all of Konami’s Illinois locations, and the one in Wood Dale is one of the larger buildings today. Ultra’s address back then was in a plaza directly behind Konami’s building. Gerry Drive, where Ultra’s address was, runs perpendicular to Mittel Drive, where Konami’s office was. Their address in Buffalo Grove is immediately outside Wheeling. You get there less than a mile after you enter Buffalo Grove.

[Ruudos]

Road Fighter is such a weird release. A Famicom game from 1985 that got released in Europe in 1991.

[_metro_]

I think it's because of the name. PALCOM sounds like a western company, like Escom or Commodore.
Japanese companies have long had the reputation of selling cheap junk here in Germany. Cars from Mitsubishi or Toyota were only bought by those who couldn't afford a "real" one, and televisions were bought from Schneider or Phillips, not Toshiba.

In any case, they wanted to get rid of the name PALCOM in 1992, and that's when the imprint "Distributed by Konami" was added. I suspect they were allowed to sell it as Konami, but didn't do it for marketing reasons.

[KenHauptfleisch]

It probably has to do with release dates, they may have already released their allotment under Konami before Castlevania 3s release in Europe

[Uopra]

I'm guessing whenever they wanted to release a game they just released the game under the label that hasn't reached it's limit yet

[FeralInferno]

Still makes me sad that the US never got Gradius 2

[Syragar]

What? You mention the watered down Grant in Castlevania 3 (which could throw daggers as a regular attack in the Japanese version but was nerfed to only stabbing in the US) and Alucard (who we all know is awesome... yes), but didn't mention Sypha? She could absolutely MELT bosses if you brought the right spell book! 😂

[PikangsFutaba]

TMNT1... yup, it may got some bad reviews but the AVGN video is fun as long as you don't take it too seriously, is weird that Palcom label in Europe, but hey... it was the Ultra Games in Europe and it went pretty solid as well.

[MikeRox]

The bit most people don't realise with Europe is that the NES didn't actually do gangbusters here like it did in the US. The Master System was pretty much ahead of it for most of the generation until heavy discounting, and even that paled in comparison to the hold Micro computers like the Spectrum, CPC464, C64, Atari ST and Amiga had on the market. It was initially the Mega Drive and SNES that started to drive consoles to the forefront of European gaming, but ultimately the Sony PlayStation that made consoles king.

[Gryphsolion]

I legit just got finished watching another of your videos, checked if i was subscribed or not and suddenly, new video

[TheDarkThunder]

I can’t shake the feeling nes TMNT was another game planned, but got a Ninja Turtle makeover.

[f.k.b.]

Maybe it had something to do with profits. Taxes are weird. It may have been Konami made too much that year and was going to be blasted with taxes so they used the off brand to avoid them.

[levimiranha]

Hey! Parodius has slowdons because it runs on PAL (common analog color enconding on europe), which slowdown when there is too much action on the screen (what happens in parodious), and Gradius runs on NTSC (common analog color encoding on the USA), which do not have those slowdowns problems.

[Laynel]

I believe the exclusivity deal was that your game had to be an NES exclusive for at least two years first before you could then release your game on other competitors' platforms.

[antoniomancilla]

I think we all though that the first TMNT wasn't made by Konami despise the sound being exactly like a Konami game.