Donkey Kong (video Game) - Licensing and Ports

Licensing and Ports

By late June 1982, Donkey Kong's success had prompted more than 50 parties in the U.S. and Japan to license the game's characters. Mario and his simian nemesis appeared on cereal boxes, board games, pajamas, and manga. In 1983, the animation studio Ruby-Spears produced a Donkey Kong cartoon (as well as Donkey Kong Jr) for the Saturday Supercade program on CBS. In the show, mystery crime-solving plots in the mode of Scooby-Doo are framed around the premise of Mario and Pauline chasing Donkey Kong, who has escaped from the circus. The show lasted two seasons.

Makers of video game consoles were also interested. Taito offered a considerable sum to buy all rights to Donkey Kong, but Nintendo turned them down. Rivals Coleco and Atari approached Nintendo in Japan and the United States respectively. In the end, Yamauchi granted Coleco exclusive console and tabletop rights to Donkey Kong because he felt that "It the hungriest company". In addition, Arakawa felt that as a more established company in the US, Coleco could better handle marketing. In return, Nintendo would receive an undisclosed lump sum plus $1.40 per game cartridge sold and $1 per tabletop unit. On December 24, 1981, Howard Lincoln drafted the contract. He included language that Coleco would be held liable for anything on the game cartridge, an unusual clause for a licensing agreement. Arakawa signed the document the next day, and, on February 1, 1982, Yamauchi persuaded the Coleco representative in Japan to sign without running the document by the company's lawyers.

Coleco did not offer the game cartridge stand-alone; instead, they bundled it with their ColecoVision. The units went on sale in July 1982. Coleco's version was a more accurate port than earlier games that had been done. Six months later, Coleco offered Atari 2600 and Intellivision versions, too. Notably, they did not port it to the Atari 5200, a system comparable to their own (as opposed to the less powerful 2600 and Intellivision). Coleco's sales doubled to $500 million and their earnings quadrupled to $40 million. Coleco's console versions of Donkey Kong sold six million cartridges in total, grossing over $153 million, and earning Nintendo over $5 million in royalties. Coleco also released stand-alone Mini-Arcade tabeletop versions of Donkey Kong, which, along with Pac-Man, Galaxian, and Frogger, sold three million units combined. Meanwhile, Atari got the license for computer versions of Donkey Kong and released it for the Atari 400/800. When Coleco unveiled the Adam Computer, running a port of Donkey Kong at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Illinois, Atari protested that it was in violation of the licensing agreement. Yamauchi demanded that Arnold Greenberg, Coleco's president, shelve his Adam port. This version of the game was cartridge-based, and thus not a violation of Nintendo's license with Atari; still, Greenberg complied. Ray Kassar of Atari was fired the next month, and the home PC version of Donkey Kong fell through.

In 1983, Atari released several computer versions under the Atarisoft label. All of the computer ports had the cement factory level, while most of the console versions did not. None of the home versions of Donkey Kong had all of the intermissions or animations from the arcade game. Some have Donkey Kong on the left side of the screen in the barrel level (like he is in the arcade game) and others have him on the right side.

Miyamoto created a greatly simplified version for the Game & Watch multiscreen. Other ports include the Amiga 500, Apple II, Atari 7800, Intellivision, Commodore 64, Commodore VIC-20, Famicom Disk System, IBM PC booter, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Atari 8-bit family and Mini-Arcade versions. The game was ported to Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) console in 1983 as one of the system's three launch titles; the same version was a launch title for the Famicom's North American version, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). However, the cement factory level is not included, nor are most of the cutscenes since Nintendo did not have large enough cartridge ROMs available in the beginning. At the title screen, this port includes a new song composed by Yukio Kaneoka; an arrangement of the tune appears in Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Both Donkey Kong and its sequel, Donkey Kong, Jr., are included in the 1988 NES compilation Donkey Kong Classics. The NES version was re-released as an unlockable game in Animal Crossing for the GameCube and as an item for purchase on the Wii's Virtual Console. The original arcade version of the game appears in the Nintendo 64 game Donkey Kong 64. Nintendo released the NES version on the e-Reader and for the Game Boy Advance Classic NES series in 2002 and 2004, respectively. The Famicom version of the game sold 840,000 units in Japan.

Another port named Donkey Kong – Original Edition was also included and pre-installed on 25th Anniversary PAL region red Wii systems in 2010 and was rewarded for the Nintendo 3DS US users who were purchasing and registering the select 3DS titles on the Nintendo eShop until January 6, 2013. This version is based on the NES version and reinstates the cement factory level, as well as some intermission animations that were not included in its original port.