How Nintendo bled Atari games to death

How Nintendo Bled Atari Games to Death Behind every great console is a great legal fight. By: Julien Mailland A↑ A↓ Off Bright Dark Blues Gray BeeLine Reader uses subtle color gradients to help you read more efficiently. In July 2024, a new company called Tengen Games released its first game, “Zed and Zee,” for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The surprising part of this story is not the release of a new “homebrew” game for a system released in 1985 — hobbyist computing has been visible since at least the 1970s — but that Tengen and its parent company, Atari Games, had disappeared 30 years ago after being crushed in court by Nintendo for doing exactly the same thing: manufacturing unauthorized cartridges for the NES. This story isn’t just a curiosity — it highlights how the gaming industry, like many creative fields, is defined as much by legal and business decisions as by artistic vision. Behind every major shift, there’s a dance between engineers, lawyers, and busin ... Read full article.