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posted by Youloute on Aug 13, 2013:

People here have probably heard about the deal which tied Sega to EA during the early 90es. I was wondering if something similar tied Sega to Sunsoft during the 8-16 bits era in Japan.
Explanation :
_Sunsoft developed at least 2 games on the System 16 hardware, both published by Sega in Japan and by Sunsoft in North America : Tough Turf and Bay-route.
_Sunsoft developed and published 4 games licensed by Sega on Famicom : Fantasy Zone 1 and 2, Alien Syndrome and After Burner.
_Sunsoft developed and published Super Fantasy Zone on Mega Drive, one of the most famous Sega's series at the time, on its own machine.
_Sunsoft published 7 games on Mega Drive in Japan between 1990 and 1993. All of them were packaged in a small box.

In 1994, Sunsoft didn't develop any game for the Mega Drive but published Panorama Cotton, which came in a regular box.
Sunsoft then developed a few games on Saturn and Titan STV but none of these game seems to have anything relevant.

Any guess?
 

posted by GodofHardcore on Aug 13, 2013:

Look at the sheer number of Sunsoft games on the NES and SNES and that should answer your question.
 

posted by Celine on Aug 14, 2013:

I don't know.
What I know is that Squaresoft had a deal with Sunsoft to publish colored version of their good GB RPG for GBC.
 

posted by MYCRAFTisbest on Aug 14, 2013:

Probably just coincidental.
 

posted by ave on Aug 14, 2013:

So what you are saying is that Sega may had a deal to bind Sunsoft to them but it was the Famicom and Super Famicom that got all the great software? Sounds like a lousy deal.
 

posted by Youloute on Aug 15, 2013:

Ave *> It could have been an arrangement or a friendly relationship. EA also developed games for the Super NES, though Trip Hawkins made an arrangement with Sega.

Celine > I didn't know that. Sunsoft published a few Squaresoft games on GB (FF Legend trilogy) but I don't think Yamauchi would have allowed that because of the no Square policy.
 

posted by Azathoth on Aug 15, 2013:

Better yet, what was the Tengen/Sunsoft/Sega connection? I've never read or heard anyone mention any details about this.

What were the details of the deals between the three? Why did Tengen bother with their crappy Fantasy Zone port when they could have just gotten Sunsoft's own (superior) port? What allowed Tengen to rework the games so the mention of either Sega or Sunsoft was barely even there?
 

posted by BLUamnEsiac on Aug 15, 2013:

Azathoth said:






Better yet, what was the Tengen/Sunsoft/Sega connection? I've never read or heard anyone mention any details about this.

What were the details of the deals between the three? Why did Tengen bother with their crappy Fantasy Zone port when they could have just gotten Sunsoft's own (superior) port? What allowed Tengen to rework the games so the mention of either Sega or Sunsoft was barely even there?

That is what I've been wondering about for years! I've only owned Tengen/SEGA After Burner and Shinobi for the NES and never played their Fantasy Zone release. Given the limitations of the NES, the two I had were fairly decent.