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Ultra Software Corporation was a shell corporation and publishing label created in 1988 as a subsidiary of Konami of America, in an effort to get around Nintendo of America's strict licensing rules in place at the time for the North American market. One of these rules was that a third-party company could only publish up to five games per year for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the US. This was hardly convenient for Konami, which had begun releasing more than ten games a year for both the Famicom and its Disk System add-on in Japan. With a greater library than it was allowed to localize, Konami formed the Ultra Games brand to extend its annual library to ten games a year.[1]

History[]

Ultra's first game was the NES version of Metal Gear. At first, Ultra was dedicated to localizing Konami's pre-existing software from Japan, but later it began publishing works from other companies as well. Some of Konami's most notable games released under the Ultra label include Operation C, Snake's Revenge and the first few Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games for the NES and Game Boy. The IBM PC and Commodore 64 conversions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Metal Gear were also published under the Ultra branding.

After the North American launch of the Super NES in 1991, Nintendo started relaxing the restriction on the number of games third parties could publish each year. As a result, Ultra Games began losing its purpose and Konami dropped the label in early 1992. The last games released by Ultra Games were Ultra Golf and World Circuit Series, both released in March 1992.

Games published[]

All games were developed by Konami, except where noted.

NES[]

Game Boy[]

IBM PC (DOS)[]

Commodore 64[]

Gallery[]

See also[]

References[]

External links[]

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