space invaders Space Invaders on Atari VCS/2600

[Ricardo Cividanes da Silva]

Well, it is possible that this subject has already been dealt with in another topic, but I would like to know if anyone has the information.

When Atari negotiated the licensing of Space Invaders, Midway was the distributor of Arcade in the USA, right?

As I understand it, did Atari obtain exclusive licensing of Space Invaders for all consoles right under Midway's nose?

Does anyone know the whole story?

[Love Cowboy]

Midway only ever obtained distribution rights to the arcade version, and they were purely an arcade company at that time anyway, so there wasn't anything amiss at all with Atari getting the console rights.

 

EDIT: in fact, Midway had to license their own arcade games to other manufacturers, first CBS, then Sega, to get them released on consoles... that's how NOT a console company they were then

 

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[The Usotsuki]

And that was so for a long time. The first two Mortal Kombats were distributed for home systems by Acclaim - only with MK3 did they (through the Williams brand) start distributing it themselves.

[Ricardo Cividanes da Silva]

Funny that not only Midway / Bally failed to realize the possibilities of Space Invaders. All others video game companies no longer see the possibility of this game on home consoles. Only Atari saw this and, even then, Warner's board gave the order. It's not clear how Warner / Atari had this insight. Many say that if Magnavox / Philips had this insight the history would heve been quite very different for Odyssey2.

[mr_me]

The wikipidea Galaxian page says "Midway, who had previously lost their license with Taito due to the success of Space Invaders in the west, was in the midst of trying to find a new partner for releasing games".  This was 1979, before atari released space invaders in 1980.  The reference source is "The Ultimate History of Video Games: The Story Behind the Craze that Touched our Lives and Changed the World". 

 

Midway licensed the actual taito game, atari licensed the name trademark.  Of course all the home consoles at the time had space invader type games with different graphics and sounds like the atari 2600.  The Odyssey2 version might be the weakest, weaker than the channel f version. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by mr_me

[Mockduck]

Related to this, does anyone have the story about why the 2600 version of Space Invaders is no longer available for Atari to release in its collections? I'm assuming they lost the Space Invaders IP, but you'd think there would be enough money to do the work to release the 2600 version, which after all was a huge huge deal for video games. 

[mr_me]

Taito only wants people playing their version of space invaders.  Atari SA can try releasing their version under a different name; the graphics and sounds are not infringing, in my opinion.  Maybe they don't want to take that risk.

[Ricardo Cividanes da Silva]

I believe Atari lost Taito's licensing in the end of 80`s.

[ubersaurus]

6 hours ago, Mockduck said:

Related to this, does anyone have the story about why the 2600 version of Space Invaders is no longer available for Atari to release in its collections? I'm assuming they lost the Space Invaders IP, but you'd think there would be enough money to do the work to release the 2600 version, which after all was a huge huge deal for video games. 

Given how cheap Atari SA is, probably it’s a licensing cost thing. Don’t ask me why they put out a new version on the Flashbacks though.

[mr_me]

I think the only games needing third party licenses Atari has on their collections are the M-network games.  ATGames has Space Invaders on some of their atari flashbacks, but they're not atari versions; looks like taito's snes space invaders.  There isn't a lot of money in retro emulation collections, third party licenses are rare.

[Ricardo Cividanes da Silva]

It`s true.
Anyway, Atari knew how to capitalize on Space Invaders. Too bad he didn't see the changes in the market.