Only 15 companies survived from early console & arcade gaming.

[TigerSuperman]

Back in the day, there were many companies fighting for our dollar in the arcades and the home console market. Many big names produced games for the Atari's and Colecos of the 70's and 80's, but did you know of all those companies that produced console and arcade games for us, only 15 are still alive today?

 

The following list does not include brand name grabs, companies that were absorbed, or companies that went bankrupt that didn't survive.

 

 

1. Sears

2. Telegames

3. Activision

4. Mattel

5. Magnavox (in part)

6. Namco (in part)

7. Sega (in part)

8. Nintendo

9. Capcom

10. Konami

11. Tecmo (in part)

12. Irem

13. Sun Corporation (SUNSOFT)

14. Taito (in part)

15. Bandai

 

15 companies, 4 of them no longer doing anything related to gaming, 6 of them in mergers or satellite acquisitions. (satellite acquisitions are when the acquired company can continue operations as it did before)

 

15 companies, that's it. Activision and Nintendo being the oldest veterans, as well as the biggest.

 

If I'm missing something mention it below, but as far as I can attest there are only 15 survivors out of hundreds. I'm sure on the computer side things likely fared better, but man that's kind of depressing.

 

I also expect Sears to be kicked off the list in the next year or so unfortunately.

Edited September 27, 2018 by TigerSuperman

[youxia]

Log entry #3393

 

So, a change of tactic, it has moved on from starting with divisive, flammable topics and posts to easily digestible and agreeable factoids and polls. The specimen is adapting after several early crude attempts at host infiltration. Its powers of mimicry and camouflage are evolving. The projected time of gestation will now probably be extended from the initial insta-burst to a few days or weeks.

 

Proceed with extreme caution.

 

 

[high voltage]

EA

[deepthaw]

Log entry #3393

 

So, a change of tactic, it has moved on from starting with divisive, flammable topics and posts to easily digestible and agreeable factoids and polls. The specimen is adapting after several early crude attempts at host infiltration. Its powers of mimicry and camouflage are evolving. The projected time of gestation will now probably be extended from the initial insta-burst to a few days or weeks.

 

Proceed with extreme caution.

 

 

 

FYI AtariAge's apparent fascination with accusing people of being sock puppets has done more to keep me from coming back than any of the "divisive" posts these sock puppets have been making.

[John Stamos Mullet]

 

FYI AtariAge's apparent fascination with accusing people of being sock puppets has done more to keep me from coming back than any of the "divisive" posts these sock puppets have been making.

They're pretty easy to spot. They're usually not very bright, and tend to repeat commonly used phrasing and arguments, and just exchange names/products in the central troll.

 

Though - most of the problem is over-moderation. eventually these clowns tucker themselves out once the sugar wears off.

[ubersaurus]

No Taito, SNK? Warner? Bandai? EA? Philips?

[youxia]

 

FYI AtariAge's apparent fascination with accusing people of being sock puppets has done more to keep me from coming back than any of the "divisive" posts these sock puppets have been making.

 

Suit yourself. Although I agree that the "divisive" posts would actually be just a slight nuisance, a lame attempt at flammery and I would not comment on these past an initial post or two. However, the real issue is that this is likely to be the person who already conducted a nasty campaign against AA and its owner and now is trying to worm its way back into the fold. This is a whole different ballgame and I think it's worth pointing out.

 

I might of course be totally wrong and assorted JaguarVisions/SpikeDantons/Bubsy3000s/etc and the OP here are honest-to-god posters who got caught in a paranoid crossfire. If that's the case they may accept my sincere apologies.

[TigerSuperman]

Not sure what's going on but let's try to stay on topic

 

No Taito, SNK? Warner? Bandai? EA? Philips?

EA was a computer company, Warner was absorbed during the merger with Time. SNk went bankrupt and is a brand name. Phillips would be Maganavox in this case as I don't believe Philips itself produced any console or arcade software back in the early 80's. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I did forget about Taito and Bandai and added them. Not sure why I forgot Taito, thanks for the reminder!

 

Still a slim depressing list though.

 

CBS, Williams, Xonox, Data East, all those guys are gone. Burger Time was classic.

Edited September 27, 2018 by TigerSuperman

[derFunkenstein]

Not sure that I'd call Sears closing hundreds of stores nationwide in the last couple of years "surviving"

[carlsson]

Well, Philips acquired Magnavox in 1974, after the first series of Magnavox Odyssey consoles but long before the Odyssey^2 which was sold as Philips Videopac G7000 in Europe. Philips even released the Videopac+ G7400 which equals the Odyssey^3 that never got released in the USA. Philips also released the VG-5000 home computer, several MSX computer models and finally became a forerunner on CD based multimedia consoles with the CD-i series in 1991, so they definitely are as much as "video games" company as Sears ever were.

 

Also EA published a good deal of games for the Sega Genesis, which puts them on the video games list. They even came across dev equipment and managed to reverse engineer the system to such part they more or less threatened Sega they would release games for their console no matter if Sega wanted it or not.

[pacman000]

First Star Software?

[carlsson]

FSS sold the IP rights to Boulder Dash to a German company last year, and in February 2018 they sold rest of the IP as well as the rights to the company name to the same German company so they've transferred.

[digdugnate]

what about Toei?

[Tanooki]

I'd have to go with EA too, leaving them off smells as bad as their own reputation.

 

And since Toei came up, Koei is another.

 

-Koei has been putting games out on various computer formats and consoles since the 1980s and have not folded.

-Square and Enix, again 80s companies consoles and more like the above, now merged so if they're excluded remove Namco and Bandai

-Atlus has been at it since the mid 80s with console gaming

-Rare (MS may own controlling shares but they live) did british computer stuff in the 80s and NIntendo

[Mulletino]

-Rare (MS may own controlling shares but they live) did british computer stuff in the 80s and NIntendo

 

Under the name "Ultimate Play the Game" - great games they were too, in fact the main reason I bought Rare Replay on the Xbone.

[carlsson]

If we're looking at mostly independent computer games companies, where do we sort Llamasoft? In the early days they were self-publishing, but I understand today they might rely on big name publishers.

[mr_me]

APh Technological Consulting, Cheshire Engineering, Quicksilver Software, Realtime Associates are all still in business today. CBS is still on the air.

 

Sears and telegames were more retailers than video game companies. Electronic Arts was a video game company from start. Activision barely survived; all the key people left, they changed their name, and were going bankrupt. Llamasoft counts.

 

What's the significance of a company that survived but is no longer in video games; Why list it.

Edited September 28, 2018 by mr_me

[John Stamos Mullet]

Not sure that I'd call Sears closing hundreds of stores nationwide in the last couple of years "surviving"

especially given the context that they don't carry video games anymore, and haven't for decades.

[derFunkenstein]

especially given the context that they don't carry video games anymore, and haven't for decades.

 

They haven't had Sears-branded games for decades, that's correct, but up until it closed in the fall of 2014, our local sears had Xbone/PS4/WiiU/3DS games. As soon as the closure was announced all the electronics were removed, presumably so that they didn't get clearanced out.

 

Back in 2001when Shopko closed, I got tons of Dreamcast games for $10-15 and a nice-ish 27" TV for $100. I had no such opportunity at Sears. Yes I'm a vulture.

[John Stamos Mullet]

 

They haven't had Sears-branded games for decades, that's correct, but up until it closed in the fall of 2014, our local sears had Xbone/PS4/WiiU/3DS games. As soon as the closure was announced all the electronics were removed, presumably so that they didn't get clearanced out.

 

Back in 2001when Shopko closed, I got tons of Dreamcast games for $10-15 and a nice-ish 27" TV for $100. I had no such opportunity at Sears. Yes I'm a vulture.

my local sears hasn't carried video games in-store since the late 90's.

[TigerSuperman]

This thread is about the early console and arcade industries, which the computer industry was historically separated from, it's why I didn't mention any early 80's or 70's computer companies (It's also why i didn't include the late 80's Japanese companies because they were later on or were computer companies.) and also specifically stated in the OP that I think the computer side may actually have had many more companies survive. Among the console and arcade companies we enjoyed back in the day, most of those guys are sadly gone. I'm sure the computer side as I said in the OP got a lot more survivors, but when it comes to Data East, Xonox, CBS, Williams, Bally, Coleco, etc, they are all kapoot.Basically this thread was made for old people haha. I figured a thread about our memories of playing classics like Burger Time and the like would be fun.It's also interesting to note Activision and Nintendo are the only two companies from back in the day that are still top dogs. Unfortunately there is something I failed to realize, the edit button has a timer. Because of this I can't update the list (I'm still waiting for Albert to approve editing the 2600 thread) but we can still mention companies I missed in the thread itself so it's not a huge loss. Some of you have put out a few companies I forgot to mention so much appreciated. Still a slim list though, makes me wanna grab a time machine at times.

 

Not sure that I'd call Sears closing hundreds of stores nationwide in the last couple of years "surviving"

We got to give Sears credit where it's due, for like 6-7 years people have been predicting Sears' death and they managed to survive another round every single time. If they had competent management, they may have even had a chance to make a come back. From what I understand the current head of Sears has no interest in growing the company and is basically sucking it dry and selling real estate.

[mr_me]

my local sears hasn't carried video games in-store since the late 90's.

You can buy video games right now from sears at sears.com but so what. JC Penney sold tons of video games in the early 1980s like sears did, they're not video game companies.

[TigerSuperman]

You can buy video games right now from sears at sears.com but so what. JC Penney sold tons of video games in the early 1980s like sears did, they're not video game companies.

Sears produced consoles and games and even had Atari produce a few exclusive software for their version of the 2600. JCpenny didn't do any of that. The only time I think JCpenny was involved with the gaming industry directly was pong.

 

Think of Sears like a stripped down Tandy (Since Tandy did actually create their own games and systems)

[mr_me]

Did sears manufacture any systems or cartridges. My understanding is that even the sears exclusives were produced by Atari. You can buy sears branded furnaces, and washing machines but they are not appliance manufacturers. You can contract Sears to shingle your roof but they are not roofers.

 

Tandy created the TRS-80 and was one of the big three PC manufacturers in the 1970s.

 

Similarly Telegames was a distributor/retailer in the late 1980s. They may have had some stuff made for them, but it was things discarded by other manufacturers.

[atarilovesyou]

my local sears hasn't carried video games in-store since the late 90's.

Nor near me...but when they did back in the 80s, it was great. The dedicated games section went around...86ish? Sears has never been anything I would consider video games related other than re-branding of the VCS.