Konami

Konami began to achieve great success when the Famicom took off, being released in the United States as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Many of the NES/Famicom's bestselling titles were produced by Konami, including 'Gradius', the 'Castlevania' series, the 'Contra' series, and 'Metal Gear'. Konami was one of the most active and prolific third party development studios for the NES, which led to conflict with Nintendo of America's licensing restrictions. During the heyday of the NES, Nintendo of America controlled the production of all licensed NES software titles, and limited third party developers to a maximum of five titles per year. Several companies found a way around this restriction by founding quasi-independent subsidiary corporations, effectively doubling the number of games that they could release during the year. In the case of Konami, this subsidiary was known as Ultra Games, and a large number of Konami titles were published in North America under their banner, including the original 'Metal Gear', 'Gyruss', 'Skate or Die', the first two 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' games and 'Snake's Revenge' (a Japanese-made 'Metal Gear' sequel made specifically for the western market). In Europe, faced with a similar restriction placed by Nintendo's European branch, Konami established Palcom Software Ltd. to the same end. By the early 1990s, Nintendo of America had relaxed many of its licensing restrictions, and, no longer needed, Ultra was shut down in 1992, with the remainder of its staff being reabsorbed into Konami's official American branch.

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