Publisher: Tiger Electronics The tabletop version was followed by a myriad of handheld versions. Platform: LCD game, table top and handheld variations Well, mostly, “real.”Īnd the very first one is, in fact, that Tiger Electronics Donkey Kong tabletop video game that was part of the court case mentioned above! King Kong (1981) However, it seems Nintendo and Universal have buried the hatchet, as Super Nintendo World is coming to Universal Studios Japan later this month!Īnyways, enough has been written about Donkey Kong and about this landmark case, so I’ll leave it at that and get onto the real King Kong games. This effectively changed the trajectory of the video game medium and the trajectory for King Kong media. If Nintendo had lost this case, not only would their history be completely different, the history of King Kong and the precedent for these types of copyright infringement cases would be forever changed. So when all was said and done, Universal actually owed Nintendo money as the court found a licensed King Kong game by Tiger Electronics infringed on Donkey Kong! (more on that later) However, Nintendo stood their ground, proving that not only did the game not infringe of King Kong, but that Universal didn’t even own the rights to King Kong! Universal had actually gone to the trouble of proving King Kong was in the public domain in a 1975 court battle with RKO Pictures. This was done purely to make their infringement case strong when they finally got to Nintendo. So when Universal knocked on their doors alleging that Donkey Kong infringed on their King Kong, they straightened up.īefore contacting Nintendo, Universal first contacted licensees like Colecovision and strong-armed them into giving royalties for selling Donkey Kong goods.
Nintendo was a fairly small company in 1981 who had just been on the verge of bankruptcy. However, before all that could happen, Nintendo got sued.
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