Most ported computer games which weren’t on home consoles

[carlsson]

Barbarian/Death Sword has a bunch of gore in it, that console manufacturers of the day may have frown at. At least Nintendo, I don't know how much Sega liked chopped off heads and blood sprouting.

[+OLD CS1]

17 hours ago, carlsson said:

Barbarian/Death Sword has a bunch of gore in it, that console manufacturers of the day may have frown at. At least Nintendo, I don't know how much Sega liked chopped off heads and blood sprouting.

Remember how prudish they were about Mortal Kombat.

[electricmastro]

Even more mass-ported computer games:

 

Beach-Head - 12:

 

Amstrad CPC (1985), Apple II (1985), Atari 8-bit (1983), BBC Micro (1985), Commodore 16, Plus/4 (1986), Commodore 64 (1983), Electron (1985), Enterprise (1985), MSX (1987), Thomson MO (1985), Thomson TO (1985) and ZX Spectrum (1984)

 

Phantasie - 11:

 

Amiga (1987), Apple II (1985), Atari 8-bit (1987), Atari ST (1986), Commodore 64 (1985), DOS (1988), FM-7 (1986), MSX (1988), PC-88 (1986), PC-98 (1986) and Sharp X1 (1987)

 

Space Rogue - 11:

 

Amiga (1990), Apple II (1989), Atari ST (1990), Commodore 64 (1989), DOS (1989), FM Towns (1990), Linux (2016), Macintosh (1989), PC-98 (1990), Sharp X68000 (1990) and Windows (2016)

 

Starquake - 11:

 

Amstrad CPC (1986), Atari 8-bit (1986), Atari ST (1988), BBC Micro (1987), Commodore 64 (1986), DOS (1988), iPad (2011), iPhone (2011), MSX (1986), Tatung Einstein (1987) and ZX Spectrum (1985)

 

Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress - 11:

 

Apple II (1982), Atari 8-bit (1983), Atari ST (1985), Commodore 64 (1983), DOS (1983), FM-7 (1985), Macintosh (1985), MSX (1989), PC-88 (1985), PC-98 (1985) and Windows (2014)

 

The Chessmaster 2000 - 10:

 

Amiga (1986), Amstrad CPC (1990), Apple II (1986), Atari 8-bit (1986), Atari ST (1987), Commodore 64 (1986), DOS (1986), Macintosh (1987), MSX (1986) and ZX Spectrum (1990)

 

Hunchback - 10:

 

Amstrad CPC (1984), Arcade (1983), BBC Micro (1984), Commodore 64 (1984), Dragon 32/64 (1984), Electron (1985), MSX (1984), Oric (1983), VIC-20 (1984) and ZX Spectrum (1984)

 

Jet Set Willy II: The Final Frontier - 10:

 

Amiga (1992), Amstrad CPC (1985), BBC Micro (1986), Commodore 16, Plus/4 (1986), Commodore 64 (1985), Electron (1986), iPad (2011), iPhone (2011), MSX (1985) and ZX Spectrum (1985)

 

The Lords of Midnight - 10:

 

Amstrad CPC (1984), Android (2013), BlackBerry (2012), Commodore 64 (1985), iPad (2012), iPhone (2012), Macintosh (2013), Windows (2013), ZX Spectrum (1984) and ZX Spectrum Next (2020)

 

Ogre - 10:

 

Amiga (1986), Apple II (1986), Atari 8-bit (1986), Atari ST (1986), Commodore 64 (1986), DOS (1986), Macintosh (1987), MSX (1987), PC-88 (1987) and PC-98 (1988)

 

Steve Davis Snooker - 10:

 

Amstrad CPC (1986), Atari 8-bit (1985), BBC Micro (1985), Commodore 16, Plus/4 (1985), Commodore 64 (1985), Electron (1986), Enterprise (1985), MSX (1988), Sinclair QL (1985) and ZX Spectrum (1984)

 

Strip Poker II Plus - 10:

 

Amiga (1988), Amstrad CPC (1988), Atari ST (1988), BBC Micro (1989), Commodore 16, Plus/4 (1988), Commodore 64 (1988), DOS (1988), Electron (1989), MSX (1988) and ZX Spectrum (1988)

 

Text-heavy games:

 

Mystery Fun House - 14

 

Adventureland - 13

 

Secret Mission - 13

 

Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle - 13

 

B-1 Nuclear Bomber - 12

 

The Golden Baton - 12

 

The Time Machine - 12

 

Arrow of Death: Part I - 11

 

Perseus & Andromeda - 11

 

Pyramid of Doom - 11

 

Savage Island - 11

 

Ten Little Indians - 11

 

Voodoo Castle - 11

 

Feasibility Experiment - 10

 

Lords of Time - 10

Edited July 16, 2022 by electricmastro

[carlsson]

Perhaps we should include publishers to get a broader picture:

 

Beach-Head (1983): Access Software. Got their first console game in 1987 with World Class Leader Board which eventually came for SMS, Genesis and Game Gear. The company was acquired by Microsoft and still is active under the new name Indie, but they didn't release a Nintendo game until Top Spin 2 for the DS in 2006. I know that consoles are much more than Nintendo but it gives an indication.

 

Phantasie (1985): Strategic Simulations Inc (SSI), acquired by Mindscape 1994, through The Learning Company and Mattel Interactive to Ubi Soft. While SSI had some of their games released for the NEC PC-98 and Sharp X1/X68000, it wasn't until Heroes of the Lance on the SMS and Pool of Radiance on the NES (both 1988) that consoles got into their life.

 

Space Rogue (1989): Origin Systems, acquired by Electronic Arts 1992. Although all of Ultima III, Ultima IV, Ultima V were released on NES, Ultima VI on SNES and Wing Commander on Sega CD and SNES (both the latter games from 1990), apparently Space Rogue wasn't.

 

Starquake (1985): Bubble Bus (?). They mainly published games for VIC-20 ,C64, ZX Spectrum, CPC, MSX and a few more. The DOS version was published by ShareData but I don't know who developed it. Safe to say, I believe this is the type of mostly European title that would fly very low beneath the radar for any console manufacturer looking for games to license. However the main developer Stephen Crow was later credited with NES work on e.g. Overlord (1990) so the connection somehow is there.

 

Ultima II (1982): Sierra On-Line, before Richard Garriott moved the franchise to Origin. In their turn, they never managed to obtain the rights from Sierra and it wasn't until Electronic Arts published the Ultima Collection in 1997 that all the games were together. While Ultima II obviously got released for e.g. Atari ST and PC-98 after the split with Garriott, perhaps it never was on Sierra's horizon to make a console version, even though the subsequent Ultima games got NES/SNES treatments (see above). Sometimes legal matters can be as much of an issue as technical or popularity wise.

 

Chessmaster 2000 (1986): Developed by Dro Soft, released through Software Toolworks. Noticeable is that The Chessmaster (1989) was an all-console game on the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Genesis, Game Gear. It was published by Hi-Tech Expressions but belongs in the canon of Chessmaster games. I haven't studied licensing here, perhaps it was divided so one company did computers and one company did video game consoles. Nevertheless, since there is only a gap of 3 years and the NES didn't really become mainstream popular until then, I'm not sure anyone is missing the 2000 version from the library.

 

Hunchback (1983): Century Electronics and Ocean Software. There was a Super Hunchback on the Game Boy in 1992. As a publisher, Ocean put out lots of good games but not until Platoon (1987) they had one for the NES. Of course they worked closely with Nintendo fairly early on, making new ports of games such as Donkey Kong and Mario Bros on C64, ZX Spectrum and CPC. Perhaps Nintendo themselves weren't equally thrilled about putting Hunchback on NES?

 

Jet Set Willy II: The Final Frontier (1985): Software Projects. Neither of Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy nor JSW II got console ports back in the days. Perhaps they were too cheap looking and European in style. There was a beefed up version of Manic Miner for the GBA in 2002 though.

 

The Lords of Midnight (1984): Beyond/British Telecom. Neither of those made any console games. Mike Singleton eventually entered that market in 2002. I'm not sure I can follow the rights to the franchise, as British Telecom got sold to MicroProse which in its turn has ended up at Infogrames... I mean Atari but Mobygames lists MindScape and Domark (Eidos) as the final publisher.

 

Ogre (1986): MicroProse/Origin. Based on Steve Jackson's board game, and at least it reached Japan on the NEC PC-88 and PC-98 with the spelling オーガ. Again I can't say for sure why it didn't get a console treatment, but the fact it was based on a board game, perhaps there were licensing concerns yet again. In the history of video games, there have been several examples how home computers and consoles have been divided into two market segments and a company may acquire licensing for one or both.

 

Steve Davis Snooker (1984): CDS Software. With the exception of CD32, they have never published for consoles. Also I would think that most console manufacturers already had decent pool and snooker games in their libraries, so it might not have been a given to port a game like this. The lock-out and licensing schemes in the mid 80's and later consoles really limits who can publish, at least legally. Remember how EA had the Genesis fully reverse engineered and used this to get rights to publish their games, which is why many 16-bit computer games from e.g. Gremlin and others got ported to the Genesis, which probably would not have happened otherwise.

 

Strip Poker II Plus (1988): Anco Software. Yeah... There was Peek-A-Boo Poker (1990) on the NES from Panesian Taiwan Ltd which obviously was unlicensed. It even got spread in Japan with slightly altered graphics to make the girls look more Japanese. Except for this game and a few 1990's releases for TG-16, CD-i and PC-FX, I don't see much of strip poker action on the consoles. Sure there were other forms of nudity based games, most certainly not officially licensed but it would be pointless for Anco or someone else to put work into porting a game like this, only to have to spread it through alternative channels, fully knowing it never would get the Nintendo Seal of Quality.

[youxia]

I'll put it a bit shorter: most computer games were a better fit on computers, for assorted reasons

 

Although it doesn't mean that these games were necessarily inferior, eg Starquake was a big hit and no worse than many NES games. I'm sure it'd do okay if it was released on consoles, but it's impossible to expect that everything was supposed to be ported back and forth, there was just limited number of people & time for that.

[carlsson]

Many of the mentioned games had their debut in the first half of the 1980's, back when consoles usually were quite inferior to home computers (sorry, all you Atari 5200 and ColecoVision lovers). Once the console market recovered again around 1986 and forward, quite possibly if computer games were to be ported, they wanted some of the latest titles, not something that had been on the market for C64, ZX Spectrum, even Atari 8-bit and sometimes DOS for years. I'm not up to the task to put together a list of mainly computer oriented games that actually got console versions and compare release dates between first computer version and first console version, but that is my impression unless it was a truly smash hit of a title where exceptions could be made. Sometimes the console manufacturers wanted custom versions of a game that would be distinct on their system too, which adds complexity to the matter: not only about porting or not porting, but about enhancing a perhaps 3-4 year old game so it still resembles the original but "better" or more pretty looking.

[DavidD]

16 hours ago, carlsson said:

I'm not up to the task to put together a list of mainly computer oriented games that actually got console versions and compare release dates between first computer version and first console version, but that is my impression unless it was a truly smash hit of a title where exceptions could be made.

There are a large number of early/mid 80s western computer hits that got NES ports in the late 80s.  I don't think we saw anything quite like that again until the Playstation era.

• Archon
• Bard's Tale
• Battle Chess
• Boulder Dash
• Caveman Ughlympics (Caveman Games)
• Chessmaster
• ADD Dragonstrike
• Deja Vu
• F-15 Strike Eagle
• Fischer Price: Firehouse Rescue, I Can Remember, Perfect Fit (three different releases)
• ADD Heroes of the Lance
• ADD Hillsfar
• Hostages (Rescue: The Embassy Mission)
• Jordan versus Bird
• King's Quest V
• Lemmings
• Lode Runner
• Magic Johnson's Fast Break
• Maniac Mansion
• Might and Magic
• Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival
• MULE
• Myth: History in the Making (released as Conan: Mysteries of Time)
• Pirates! (Sid Meier)
• Pipe Dream (Pipe Mania)
• ADD Pool of Radiance
• Raid on Bungeling Bay
• Rocket Ranger
• Sesame Street (some of the NES releases contain ports of assorted DOS games)
• Shadowgate
• Silent Service
• Skate or Die!
• Ski or Die
• Spelunker
• Spy vs. Spy
• Tetris (okay, this feels like cheating, but...)
• Times of Lore
• The Three Stooges
• Ultima III: Exodus
• Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
• Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
• Uninvited
• Where in Time is Carmen San Diego?
• Winter Games
• Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
• Wizardy II

That's not even counting Japanese computer games that received Famicom/NES ports.

 

The NES and Game Boy Color both received a number of "classic" 80s computer game ports, and the Playstation seemed to receive several simultaneous DOS/PS releases.

[carlsson]

Nice list. I'm taking the liberty to make a cut-off at games released on computers before 1987, because at that point systems like NES and SMS were starting to become mainstream which shows in that the time period between computer and console versions was becoming smaller and smaller.

 

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981-87) -- NES version 1987
Wizardy II (1982-88) -- NES version 1990

 

These two are special cases since the Apple II versions were out very early, than it took five years to get ports to any other computer and the NES versions followed shortly after.

Lode Runner (1983-85) -- NES version 1984

Spelunker (1983-86) -- NES version 1985
Raid on Bungeling Bay (1984-85) -- NES version 1985
Spy vs. Spy (1984-87) -- NES version 1986
 

All those are examples of mostly computer based games where the NES got ports quite early on, sometimes before the last computer port. Notable that three of those were Brøderbund titles and the last one was by First Star, who however didn't get a port of their prime game Boulder Dash until three years later, see below.

M.U.L.E. (1983-85) -- NES version 1990
Archon (1983-86) -- NES version 1989

Boulder Dash (1984-85) - NES version 1989
F-15 Strike Eagle (1984-87) -- NES version 1992
 

These four games are examples of older computer games which were picked up in console versions many years after their hayday.  Two titles from Electronic Arts, one from First Star and one from MicroProse. Probably they had nothing in common, except all are solid games worthy to be available on consoles too (though usually modified vs the original computer versions).

Ultima III: Exodus (1983-86) -- NES version 1987

 

This belongs to the same category as the Wizardry games, since Ultima started off as Apple II games that weren't ported until years after.

 

Deja Vu (1985-87) -- NES version 1988
Winter Games (1985-88) -- NES version 1987
Bard's Tale (1985-88) -- NES version 1990
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985-88) -- NES version 1989
Silent Service (1985-89) -- NES version 1989
Chessmaster (1986-87) -- NES version 1989
Might and Magic (1986-88) -- NES version 1990

 

All those were released within or very shortly after the last computer versions. Some maybe could have been published a year or so earlier.

 

So well, there is a partial list of dates. Out of the older, classic computer games that got released on console (mainly NES here), the Brøderbund titles stand out as contemporary, the others delayed by various amounts.

[electricmastro]

8 hours ago, DavidD said:

The NES and Game Boy Color both received a number of "classic" 80s computer game ports, and the Playstation seemed to receive several simultaneous DOS/PS releases.

Yeah, quite a number of games released on computer that released either there or on Game Boy systems:

 

Shamus - 9:

 

Apple II (1983), Atari 8-bit (1982), Commodore 64 (1983), Game Boy Color (1999), PC-6001 (1983), PC Booter (1984), TI-99/4A (1983), TRS-80 CoCo (1983) and VIC-20 (1982)

 

Bubble Ghost - 8:

 

Amiga (1988), Amstrad CPC (1988), Apple IIgs (1988), Atari ST (1987), Commodore 64 (1988), DOS (1988), Game Boy (1990) and Windows (2018)

 

Prophecy: The Viking Child - 8:

 

Amiga (1990), Atari ST (1990), DOS (1991), Game Boy (1992), Linux (2017), Lynx (1991), Macintosh (2017) and Windows (2017)

 

Wings of Fury - 8:

 

Amiga (1990), Amstrad CPC (1990), Apple II (1987), Commodore 64 (1990), DOS (1989), Game Boy Color (1999), PC-98 (1989) and Sharp X68000 (1989)

 

The Game of Harmony - 7:

 

Amiga (1990), Amstrad CPC (1990), Atari ST (1990), Commodore 64 (1990), DOS (1990), Game Boy (1991) and ZX Spectrum (1990)

 

Gear Works - 6:

 

Amiga (1992), Commodore 64 (1992), DOS (1992), Game Boy (1993), Game Gear (1994) and Windows 3.x (1993)

 

Titus the Fox - 6:
 

Amiga (1992), Amstrad CPC (1992), Atari ST (1992), DOS (1992), Game Boy (1993) and Game Boy Color (2000)

 

Cool Ball - 5:

 

Amiga (1990), Amstrad CPC (1990), Atari ST (1990), DOS (1990) and Game Boy (1992)

 

Metal Masters - 3:

 

Amiga (1991), Atari ST (1990) and Game Boy (1993)

 

Tip Off - 3:

 

Amiga (1992), Atari ST (1992) and Game Boy (1992)

 

Towers: Lord Baniff's Deceit - 3:

 

Atari ST (1993), DOS (1994) and Game Boy Color (1999)

 

Also a mention for Logical, which would have counted had it not been released for CDTV, though I understand that system was somewhat of a computer anyway.

Edited July 17, 2022 by electricmastro

[electricmastro]

On 7/16/2022 at 12:00 PM, carlsson said:

Jet Set Willy II: The Final Frontier (1985): Software Projects. Neither of Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy nor JSW II got console ports back in the days. Perhaps they were too cheap looking and European in style. There was a beefed up version of Manic Miner for the GBA in 2002 though.

Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy I actually almost made it onto the list, had it not been for the fact that both released on Xbox 360 in 2012.

[electricmastro]

So in terms of the most mass-ported pre-1990 computer games that aren’t text-heavy, this would be the list so far:

 

Rogue - 18

 

NetHack - 16

 

Bruce Lee - 14

 

Chuckie Egg - 14

 

Beach-Head - 12

 

Death Sword - 12
 
Gunship - 12

 

Phantasie - 11

 

Space Rogue - 11

 

Starquake - 11

 

Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress - 11
 
Captain Blood - 10

 

The Chessmaster 2000 - 10
 
Harrier Mission - 10

 

Hunchback - 10

 

Jet Set Willy II: The Final Frontier - 10
 
Joe Blade - 10

 

The Lords of Midnight - 10

 

Ogre - 10

 

Steve Davis Snooker - 10

 

Strip Poker II Plus - 10
 
Superstar Indoor Sports - 10
 
Xenon - 10

Edited July 21, 2022 by electricmastro

[Keatah]

On 7/5/2022 at 7:20 PM, electricmastro said:

Out of curiosity, I was looking into what computer games were the most ported, but didn’t end up on home consoles despite any popularity they had.

There were/are numerous Apple II games which didn't make it to consoles. The games in mind might be like Gorgon, Bandits, Track Attack, Serpentine, to name but four. Anything from SiriusSoftware or Br0derbund. All the early action games.

[carlsson]

Per Mobygames:

Serpentine - 5 formats

Bandits - 4 formats

Track Attack -2 formats

Gorgon - exclusive to Apple II

 

Gorgon very much looks like a Defender/Dropzone clone. It must say something that Sirius didn't convert it, when they worked with multiple formats on most of their other titles.