Only 15 companies survived from early console & arcade gaming.

[derFunkenstein]

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.

 

Yes, you're right. Good job, Sears. Way to die as slowly as possible.

 

It's possible that my local Sears carried video games because it was literally the only competitor to Walmart in that sector for a long time. Only in recent years (3-4 years) have we had a Gamestop.

 

I live in backwards farmstown midwestern USA. We do things differently than the people on either coast.

[mbd30]

It seems like Electronic Arts survived.

[+Black_Tiger]

Mattel shouldn't be included, as they sold the Intellivision rights early on to Intellivision Inc/Intv Corp, who continued until 1991.

 

If Mattel is there, then Tonka should be too.

[John Stamos Mullet]

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)

Sears didn't produce anything. Everything they carried with a Sears name on it was a re-branded Atari product. They produced alternative labels, not games.

[TigerSuperman]

Mattel shouldn't be included, as they sold the Intellivision rights early on to Intellivision Inc/Intv Corp, who continued until 1991.

 

If Mattel is there, then Tonka should be too.

The list was more about whether the company itself was still around as I mentioned in the OP about if the companies were still active in the industry, but to be fair to Mattel they did release something other than the Intellivision. It wasn't very good though.

 

Sadly I can't really update the list as there's no edit button which is a shame because I wanted to build the list overtime so we could see the full list of survivors, but people can mention companies I missed in the thread itself so It's not a total loss.

[Eltigro]

But the Sears Video Arcade had that sweet, upscale burled maple simulated wood grain thing going on... that alone deserves special mention...

[carlsson]

For that matter, Tecmo went defunct on April 1, 2010 so that eliminates them from the list.

[pacman000]

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.

Good to know, & a bit sad.

 

Then again, wasn't FFS was ran by about two people? I guess they deserve to retire.

[CatPix]

What is the threshold anyway?

1980's is pretty vague. I suppose that given the "early" mention, it should be up to the NES era maybe?

I'm pretty sure that there are hundred of companies still alive from that era, just not major ones nor famous ones.

For example in France, the JEUTEL company was founded in 1969 for billiards and flipper distribution in bars and cafés, later extended to arcade games. They mostly created pirates copies of original arcade games, but later they also licenced arcade games, so there re some official "JEUTEL" games (even tho they are unmodified games with only the JEUTEL name added on the demo screen).

Jeutel is still active in video games, tho those days they are mostly in distributing gambling electronic games.

 

In the same type of company, René Pierre (established 1952) is still here, tho they were and still are mostly in the billiards and Ping Pong location business, they always licenced their arcade games proper. And made much classy arcade boxes but heh. tastes and colors.

 

Stambouli Enterprise, a Libanese company did the same under the nameplate Karateco, in Europe, mostly France and Italy, but also, apparently, in the US. Karateco is no longer used but the company itself still exists.

 

Ubisoft was created in 1986. While they started programming on computers of the time, they quickly also started to develop (or allow ports) of their games on consoles.

Infogrames was founded in 1983.

Akor (a company that you may know for making the TV-Boy Atari 2600 pirate clone) was founded in 1986. Tho they are more a toy company than a video game company, and the TV-Boy seems to be their only majot venture in video gaming.

BigBen Interactive, famous for their crappy, low-quality accessories, was founded in 1981 in France.

 

And I'm sure Europeans and Japanese can alos point out at video games companies or video gaming related companies (I mean the list include Sears, which was more into distributing video games systems than developing systems or games).

Ig we go that way, I can add the French companies Brandt and SEB.

Brandt sold the Videopac+ console under their own name Jopac (unlike Radiola, Siera and Magnavox, Brandt never belonged to the Philips group), and they had a few games on it of their own.

 

 

SEB sold Pong games in the early 70's, and unlike most Pongs, SEB being specialized in molding process, they made their own, very distinctive console :

Edited September 29, 2018 by CatPix

[deepthaw]

I dont know enough of the history of the acquisitions, but what would it take for an acquired company to still be viewed as alive?

 

For example: Apples acquisition of NeXT was widely viewed as Apple paying NeXT and Steve Jobs to take over the company. Was NeXT truly dead, despite bringing their CEO and even more crucially (for this discussion) their software becoming the backbone of all of Apples future products?

 

Is post NeXT Apple the same company as pre NeXT Apple?

 

(None of the acquisitions or mergers above may have been similar enough for this to be relevant, I concede.)

[pacman000]

Isn't Epoch still around?

[CatPix]

Well this is a tough question.

I think the way to answer this is to look at the products.

 

In your example, if Apple dropped their own software for NeXT ones, then, today's Apple is in fact NeXT under a more palatable brand.

On the opposite end, as soon as Philips acquired Magnavox, all new products by Magnavox were Philips products with a Magnavox label, making Magnavox just a sticker-brand for Philips.

 

There is probably a middle-ground with a brand acquiring another and letting this brand keeping their identity, but in computer/videogaming, I can't really think of an obvious example.

 

One I can think of is PSA Peugeot-Citroën, which did started with Peugeot putting their tech all over Citroën cars :

(and Talbot, but Talbot was put down a few years later)

but later on, Citroën regained some originality both in design and in technical details, even if today, you still find lots of common parts (same engines, same accessories, etc...)

[Tanooki]

It seems like Electronic Arts survived.

That's one I mentioned on page one, and it still works despite now excluding 80s computers. The NES ended up getting MULE in 1990 and it's a pretty decent conversion of the 83 PC game, and I don't recall what year Sega got the madden jollies stared if it was then or what, so they do qualify.

[thetick1]

Well this is a tough question.

I think the way to answer this is to look at the products.

 

In your example, if Apple dropped their own software for NeXT ones, then, today's Apple is in fact NeXT under a more palatable brand.

 

Well then by your definition Apple is in fact NeXT as OS X Coca API was heavily based on NeXT. Cocoa is now the only OS X API not deprecated with the modern Apple OS as both Classic and Carbon have been deprecated since Mountain Lion (OS 10.8 )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_(API)

Edited September 30, 2018 by thetick1

[CatPix]

Well I'm fine with that definition.

For me Atari is still dead and Infogrames still exist. Just because you absorb something and change your name doesn't make you the real deal I haven't seen many people thinking that today's Atari is the continuation of old Atari, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply to Apple and NeXT.

[+frankodragon]

Looks like Epoch makes those games similar to the classic Run Yourself Ragged made by Tomy.

[TigerSuperman]

Isn't Epoch still around?

Yes it is actually, https://epoch.jp/

[Flojomojo]

[+thanatos]

Looks like Epoch makes those games similar to the classic Run Yourself Ragged made by Tomy.

 

 

Ooh, I had one of those. Loved it and mastered it!