Cut into the Number of Famiclones Ever Produced - Case #3: NTDEC

How many famiclones have ever been produced? This is the third article dedicated to this great mystery. I have considered about the famous Micro Genius at #1, and Dar Yar at #2 . This time I'll focus on the infamous Nintendo Electronics Co. (任天堂電子股份有限公司) aka NTDEC.

Nintendo Electronics, the company not related to Nintendo

In the previous article, I enumerated seven past major famiclone manufacturers in Taiwan, then estimated the number of units manufactured by Dar Yar Electronics, depending on a few historical records remain. This time, I make the same estimation for the notorious Nintendo Electronics Company (NTDEC).

Although the company's name includes the word "Nintendo," it has nothing to do with Nintendo, of course. Rather, it was an infamous pirate manufacturer that was masquerading under the name of Nintendo.

NTDEC, founded by Jimmy Chi in 1986, was a small company with about 10 employees. Other details are unknown. NTDEC focused on manufacturing not only console units but also cartridges, and their cartridges were perhaps more dominating than their consoles in the market. At least it was one of the leading manufacturers of early pirated cartridges. NTDEC is also known for its early efforts in developing original software. There was also an affiliate company named MEGA SOFT (富利康科技有限公司) as another software division.

Nintendo Electronics vs Nintendo

The original Nintendo company would not remain silent about the fact that the company was claiming to be Nintendo, and around 1992, the company was sued for copyright infringement by original Nintendo company in Taiwan. However, since Taiwan was not included in the international copyright framework at the time, the decision was unfavorable to the original company. On the other hand, in the previous year NTDEC and UMC (Taiwanese semiconductor supplying ROMs to NTDEC and others) became the first FC/NES pirates to be busted in the United States.

This was not only a copyright infringement case, but also led to the U.S. government pressuring the Taiwanese government to put a stop to the export of pirated video games.

From 總統府 "外人控告我國商人仿冒商標", government's official record archived in 國史舘 (Academia Historica) 

This was followed by a 1993-1995 court decision requiring NTDEC to pay Nintendo $24 million in damages. These events marked a turning point in the fight against pirated cartridges, at least in the countries where Nintendo's products were sold officially.

Taiwanese TV news reporting NTDEC's defeat at the U.S. court, May 25 1993

Annual Sales of NTDEC

NTDEC had annual sales of about NT$300 million in 1992 (United Daily, May 26, 1993, etc.). In the previous article I estimated that the aforementioned Dar Yar Electronics had annual sales of about NT$400 million in 1990, which indicates that NTDEC was at least smaller than that.

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