Ultracade is an arcade multigame system, originally launched in 2001 by Hyperware Technologies (later known as Ultracade Technologies). It featured 86 built-in games, alongside additional "packs" of more games that could be purchased separately. The Ultracade brand was later sold to Global VR in 2006;[1] Global VR would later produce a sequel machine titled Global Arcade Classics. "Home model" versions of the Ultracade line would be produced by the Chicago Gaming Company, including the Arcade Legends series.
Most (if not all) games included on/released for the Ultracade were unlicensed and unauthorized. However, Hyperware Technologies boldly claimed that all games were officially licensed, leading to the machine being widely distributed. Very shady and illegal practices were done to make it appear legitimate, including making fake press releases claiming the games were licensed, addressing payments to the no-longer-existent Toaplan Ltd., falsely filing the trademark for the MAME emulator, and even registering the intellectual property rights for Mr. Do! without Aruze Corporation's approval.
David Foley, the the founder and former owner of Ultracade (before it was sold to Global VR), would be subject to a lawsuit in 2009. This case was tangentially related to the bootlegging of games seen on the Ultracade, among additional charges of fraudulent activity. Foley would plead guilty to some charges in 2013.[2]
Overview[]
Most iterations of the Ultracade were sold as JAMMA-based conversion kits. The Ultracade board itself is a full PC hard drive, seemingly based on Windows architecture, and features a CD-ROM drive for adding games.
Menu preview sequence for Donkey Kong, falsely claiming the game as being licensed.
The user interface is comparable to the later-released HyperSpin frontend for MAME. The menu features scrolling logos of each game title; hovering over a game will display a preview screenshot or video, along with an animated sequence. Menu sequences generally use the games' original arcade artwork, though Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man use assets from the Microsoft Arcade CD-ROM covers (presumably in connection to the purported "loophole" detailed below). A custom, 3D-rendered mascot character with long pigtails is used on the menu interface and the arcade machine artwork.
Game Packs[]
Additional Ultracade "game packs" were sold on either CD-ROMs or USB drives, and would be installed onto the Ultracade hard drive. The game packs contain an assortment of (pirated) arcade ROMs; in some cases, Ultracade claimed to have copied the contents of the games' official Windows releases (e.g. Microsoft Arcade compilations).[3]
Ultracade purported to have acquired and dumped individual, legal circuit boards or CD-ROMs per game pack sold; this is largely implausible, given the scale at which the game packs were manufactured. Additionally, purchasers of the game packs were not given any physical, original copies of the games by Ultracade; which is the only means in which this theoretical practice could arguably be legal. David Foley would continue selling USB game packs into 2006, following Global VR's acquisition of the Ultracade IP; this was deemed illegal for Foley to do under Global VR's ownership.[2]
In 2003, Namco issued a statement regarding the unauthorized use of Pac-Man on Ultracade machines; with Namco dubbing the Ultracade was "an unlicensed, illegal product", and implying that legal action would be taken. David Foley would reply to Namco's statement; claiming that the games were "legally" acquired via the Microsoft Return of Arcade: Anniversary Edition CD-ROM for Windows, and that redistribution of the Return of Arcade games was allowed under Microsoft's terms.[3] In truth, this practice would almost certainly still be illegal (due to factors such as anti-circumvention law), even if individual copies of Return of Arcade were purchased per Ultracade game pack sold.
Ultracade also advertised a "Universal ROM Adapter" in 2003, acting as another alternative to load games. The adapter would have the arcade operator socket the original chips off of an arcade PCB (e.g. Pac-Man) onto a daughter board, which would connect to the Ultracade via a USB port.[4] Despite being advertised, it is unknown if this was ever commercialized; though it likely would be a fully legal (albeit impractical) method to load games.
List of pirated games and companies affected[]
The following games have been verified as being unauthorized, either via comment from their (then-current) copyright holders or from analysis of shady practices surrounding them (e.g. the false wire transfers to Toaplan Ltd).
| Company | Games stolen | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| Aruze Corporation (formerly Universal) | Cosmic Avenger, Do Run Run, Jumping Jack, Kick Rider, Lady Bug, Mr. Do!, Mr. Do!'s Castle, Mr. Do!'s Wild Ride, Nova 2001, Snap Jack, Space Panic, Super Pierrot, Yankee Do | A press release falsely claimed the games were licensed; Aruze's name is suspiciously absent from it, being referred to as Universal instead. David Foley unjustly registered trademarks and intellectual property rights to Mr. Do!; Foley was seemingly able to do this due to Aruze erroneously registering the rights under the name "Mister Do". After Aruze was informed of this, Ultracade's copyright registries were quickly terminated. |
| G-Mode (IP holder of Data East titles) | Karate Champ, Side Pocket, Street Hoop, Super Doubles Tennis, Lucky Poker | G-Mode stated that Ultracade's usage was unauthorized. |
| Jaleco | 64th Street, Astyanax, Avenging Spirit, Cybattler, EDF, P-47, Pinbo, Rod Land, Saint Dragon | A press release falsely claimed the games were licensed. Jaleco stated that Ultracade's usage was unauthorized. |
| MAME (emulator) | N/A | Ultracade registered the trademark for MAME without the original authors' permission. David Foley made the very ironic claim that this was done in hopes of preventing piracy.[5] |
| Namco | Dig Dug, Galaga, Galaxian, Mappy, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man, Xevious | Included in a pack titled "Pac-Family Classics". Ultracade claimed that the games were "legally" acquired via the Microsoft Return of Arcade: Anniversary Edition CD-ROM (likely also including Microsoft Revenge of Arcade given the available titles), which would almost certainly still be illegal anyway.[3] Notably, the ROMs used do not actually appear to be the originally-programmed Return of Arcade ports, and Galaga does not appear on a Microsoft Arcade compilation regardless. |
| Nintendo | Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Donkey Kong 3 | Originally released as single-game packs. All three games were later included in a post-2005 USB game pack titled "King Pack for AL". |
| SNK Playmore Corp. | Super Champion Baseball, Super Dodge Ball | SNK Playmore stated that Ultracade's usage was unauthorized. |
| Taito | Unknown | Ultracade likely had some form of official license from Taito; despite this, it is cited that some Taito games were used without permission. It is possible that the unauthorized usage only applies to David Foley's post-2005 USB game packs. Phoenix, a single-game pack, may be an unauthorized title; as well as the "Pop Pack" games, which includes later-released titles such as Pop'n Pop.[6] |
| Tecmo (formerly Tehkan) | Bomb Jack, Bomb Jack Twin, Grid Iron Fight, Mighty Bomb Jack, Pinball Action, Saboten Bombers, Tehkan World Cup | Tecmo stated that Ultracade's usage was unauthorized. Mighty Bomb Jack is a single-game pack. |
| Toaplan | Demon's World, Hellfire, Outzone, Pipi & Bibi's, Snow Bros., Snow Bros. 2, Truxton 2, Zero Wing | David Foley ordered a co-worker to send checks and wire transfers to "Toaplan Ltd." (an entity controlled by Foley himself); Toaplan Co., Ltd., the original Japanese company, went defunct in 1994 following bankruptcy. Toaplan's IP rights holder following their closure is unclear (prior to the formation of Tatsujin Co., Ltd. in 2017). |
Unconfirmed[]
There are several other Ultracade titles which are speculated as being used without license (prior to Foley's post-2005 USB packs), though have not been 100% confirmed. These include:
- Columbia Pictures (IP holder of Gottlieb titles) - Q*bert; released as a single-game pack with bundled "360° joysticks".[7]
- Enterbrain (former IP holder of UPL titles) - Penguin-kun Wars
- Konami - Frogger, Gyruss; released as single-game packs. Later released under official license by Global VR (as Frogger and Friends).[8]
- Million Co., Ltd (former IP holder of Technōs titles) - Super Championship V'ball, Super Dodge Ball, Tag Team Wrestling
- Nihon Bussan Co. Ltd. (Nichibutsu) - Moon Cresta
- NMK - Saboten Bombers; may also include Bomb Jack Twin
- Tecfri - Speedball
- Technōs Japan - WWF Superstars, WWF Wrestlefest; Million commented that they no longer owned these games, making the IP holder (at the time) unclear.
- Valadon Automation - Bagman
Trivia[]
- In the bylines of some sales flyers, Ultracade vaguely suggests that an unspecified court ruling was in favor of "reselling" arcade ROMs for "revenue generation". The veracity of this claim is unknown, and it is unclear if this reported litigation surrounded the Ultracade itself.[4]
- Promotional descriptions for the first Arcade Legends machine model, released in 2005, list the "copyright holders" for each included game. While properly citing some companies, a majority of games have their listed copyright holder as "UltraCade Technologies 2003";[9] suggesting that the Chicago Gaming Company "licensed" the games from Ultracade directly, assuming the rights as legitimate.
- Notably, later Ultracade-based cabinets (under Global VR and/or Chicago Gaming Company) do not include any games that had this labeling distinction.
- The Arcade Legends 3 machine model would remain in official production until 2024, at which point it was discontinued.
- Possibly by coincidence, the rights to the Aruze/Universal arcade library have remained largely in turmoil following the Ultracade's release. Notably, Coleco Holdings (as run by River West Brands) seemingly falsely registered rights to games such as Cosmic Avenger, and the Mr. Do! trademark is currently used in Europe for unrelated, rebranded arcade games by Electrocoin.[10]
References[]
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20060427091026/http://www.ultracade.com/press/145/global-vr-to-purchase-ultracade-technologies
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83638439
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Namco Slams Ultracade Use of Pac-Man" (Vending Times, archive.org)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Ultracade brochure (2003)
- ↑ https://games.slashdot.org/story/05/02/21/0415209/arcade-kit-seller-applies-for-mame-trademark-updated
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20040601114515/http://www.ultracade.nl/Pack_Pop-Pack.htm
- ↑ http://www.ultracade.nl/Pack_Q-Bert.htm
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20091010202735/https://www.globalvr.com/products_ff.html
- ↑ https://www.avsforum.com/threads/costco-selling-a-video-arcade-machine.598256/
- ↑ https://www.electrocoin.com/product-tag/mr-do/
Sources[]
- "In-Depth: Exploring Ultracade's Alleged Counterfeit Arcade Game Racket" (Gamasutra, archive.org)