Talk:Ikegami Tsushinki

Iggy, do you have access to the book referenced in this entry? Does it actually name any games developed by Ikegami? More games have been added to the Wikipedia article: Space Demon (variation of Space Firebird), Computer Othello, Heli Fire, Space Launcher, and Sky Skipper. Have these been confirmed, or is someone just guessing? This page says Ikegami had nothing to do with Computer Othello...I think... CRV 06:57, 8 June 2008 (CDT)

Iwasaki Giken

In the chapter about the conflict between Nintendo and Ikegami, Akagi notes that Nintendo had gained enough technical knowledge to proceeed with the complete development of games on their own, with Donkey Kong Jr. being Nintendo's first game entirely developed in-house. But Ikegami sues because they suspect Nintendo of having disassembled the original Donkey Kong in the development of Junior, thereby including code by Ikegami in their new program, which seems to be accepted by both Akagi and the court. But at the end of the chapter, he mentions that the disassembly and redevelopment of Donkey Kong was carried out at Nintendo's subcontractor Iwasaki Giken (岩崎技研工業) in Kyoto. This could be another track to investigate. --Idrougge 16:29, 28 August 2007 (CDT)

A search of Iwasaki Giken doesn't bring up anything particularly interesting. I guess it made some sort of assembler called "PROASM II." CRV 20:35, 28 August 2007 (CDT)

Crazy Kong

Does anyone know the true origins of the game Crazy Kong? The revelation that Ikegami coded and built DK, amongst other higher profile arcade games, and not Nintendo in house may help to explain where this game surfaced from. I've always thought this was a hack built from beta status code from a prototype DK board that was leaked, and not what is commonly accepted a semi legit licensed version for outside Japan and the US. The implied fact that subcontracting was used only increases the chances of the code for DK being leaked. So does anyone really know for sure, because this has been bugging me since 1981 :) (Puckman)

Update: Some Japanese information (forums, blogs, etc) seem to indicate that the Crazy Kong bootleg game derived from the company Falcon/Kyoei. Like Nintendo they had no development capabilities at the time, they were however prolific in the manufacture of bootleg PCBs, culminating a few years down the line in the company's management receiving custodial sentences for their bootleg version of Crazy Kong JR - courtesy of Nintendo. This is ironic as Nintendo granted limited official license status to Crazy Kong outside of the US and Japan, when it became clear it could not meet global customer demand. In terms of hardware they utilised the 1980 Nichibutsu Crazy Climber boardset, and some sources suggest development work was outsourced to shoehorn the early cut DK code on to the different, technically inferior and older specced platform. The company suggested to be involved in this activity was UPL which later went on to develop a number of popular games throughout the mid 80s and 90s. How much of this is verifiable as fact is difficult to say, but there's certainly more information out there now than there was when I first posed the question above. (Puckman)