Tengen's Status as an Independent Company vs. Subsidiary of Atari Games

[DavidD]

Quick question...

 

I always assumed Tengen was just a publishing label established by Atari Games when they wanted to release NES titles but weren't allowed to use the name Atari on home goods.  However, I was perusing some 7800 labels recently and noticed that the Klax label says:

Quote

Klax is a TM of Atari Games Corp. Lic. to Tengen

Was Tengen incorporated as a unique entity, then?  Did Tengen/Atari games publish titles for the Atari Inc. systems?  I assumed they just licensed the titles directly to Atari Inc.

 

I get why they couldn't publish/tell "Atari Games" home software -- I'm just puzzled why the 7800 title has a Tengen credit instead of Atari Games for copyright.

[MrMaddog]

Tengen is the subsidiary that dealt with not only releasing games for home consoles but also licensing computer versions of Atari Games titles to other companies like Domark. [1]

 

My guess is that Tengen also licensed their titles to Atari Corp because Atari Corp themselves publish games for their own systems like the 7800 & Lynx.

 

Legally the trademark of the games themselves belong to Atari Games, but I guess they still have to differentiate between the two Ataris...

 

 

[DavidD]

6 hours ago, MrMaddog said:

Tengen is the subsidiary that dealt with not only releasing games for home consoles but also licensing computer versions of Atari Games titles to other companies like Domark. [1]

 

My guess is that Tengen also licensed their titles to Atari Corp because Atari Corp themselves publish games for their own systems like the 7800 & Lynx.

 

Legally the trademark of the games themselves belong to Atari Games, but I guess they still have to differentiate between the two Ataris...

 

 

Right, I was just mildly puzzled as two why Tengen was the licensing company, not Atari Games. (I suppose it's due to Tengen being the home division of Atari Games).

 

I mean, I suppose it makes sense -- it just seemed weird at the time.

[Ecernosoft]

On 12/9/2022 at 2:50 PM, MrMaddog said:

Tengen is the subsidiary that dealt with not only releasing games for home consoles but also licensing computer versions of Atari Games titles to other companies like Domark. [1]

 

My guess is that Tengen also licensed their titles to Atari Corp because Atari Corp themselves publish games for their own systems like the 7800 & Lynx.

 

Legally the trademark of the games themselves belong to Atari Games, but I guess they still have to differentiate between the two Ataris...

 

 

Tengen also made games for the Nintendo NES and other systems too besides just Atari related. I think that Atari was real dumb sometimes as they would do good, if not better ports of THEIR games to other systems and then we got..... inferior stuff.  (Not always, but would you play a 5200 port over a colecovision one?)

 

Like, with the colecovision. Defender 5200 vs Colecovision Defender. (I'm pretty sure) It's atari's fault that they even got a defender. 

I know we are talking about tengen here but Atari is closely related to Tengen. (Heck, I always thought Tengen was just under-cover atari.)

 

If they hadn't done this they would've had a reason to buy their system, but NOPE!

 

And let me just add that the INTELEVISION PORT of PAC-MAN is way better than the 2600 port, and with the fact that the Intelevision's gimick was that it was more graphically capable than the 2600..... well......

 

Just saying.

[The Usotsuki]

I saw Tengen as a "DBA".

[+Psionic]

5 hours ago, The Usotsuki said:

I saw Tengen as a "DBA".

 

Tengen was incorporated as a separate entity.  It was registered in December 1987 and became inactive in September 1999.

 

https://www.bizapedia.com/ca/tengen-inc.html