Tetris is the title that probably single handedly handed Nintendo the portable market in the late 80’s.  This was accomplished via some shrewd business maneuvering with the right people on both sides of the table.  It was also the pack-in title (remember those?) for the newly released Nintendo Game Boy.  This single move is what probably handed Nintendo the fledgling hand held market.  It certainly solidified Nintendo’s stranglehold over the market for decades to come.  In the independent gaming world though, a company named Elektronite has been working to bring an official version of the block falling game to the Mattel Intellivision.  They are not giving up.

According to their Facebook page they were close to getting the rights to the Mattel Intellivision version of Tetris.  There is no reason given for the failed attempt at licensing the game- whether it was financial, lack of anything or something else altogether.  We do wish Elektronite the best of luck in licensing Tetris though as we want to support officially licensed products whenever we can.

Tetris was originally released in early June 1984 and was eventually ported, licensed, and even stolen to be released on nearly every computer you could think of.  Consoles were a different story though as Nintendo was quite successful in acquiring the rights to the hand held and console versions.  This move blocked Sega from being able to release a version of the game- though they did until a court order forced them to recall it.  Tengen had the rights to the arcade which they ported their version of Tetris to the Nintendo Entertainment System (they were no longer a licensed developer for the NES at this time).  Tengen was also hit with a court order blocking the sale of the console version of Tetris.  Sega and Tengen versions are quite valuable.

Elektronite’s version of Tetris, if they can come to an agreement for the Mattel Intellivision rights, will be one of the newest versions for one of the oldest platforms.

Source: Elektronite’s Facebook page

Carl Williams

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