[game_preservation] Can anyone shed light on Tommo legal issues with SNK and Atari?

[Martin Goldberg]

I can't speak about the SNK part, but I can about the Atari situation.
Those were not allegations, they were factual. Tommo was distributing
pirate versions of the Flashback 2 here in the US to Kroger and it's
affiliates, though I can't say whether it was knowingly or not. The end
result product wise was that all distribution was stopped and any remaining
inventory at Kroger and it's affiliated was sent to Atari for destruction.
(I can't comment on the legal results of the lawsuit, it's not my place).

We (Legacy Engineering now Syzygy Co.) designed the FB2 with proprietary
parts (including a custom reproduction of the full Atari 2600 internals on
a single chip and a custom chip to handle loading of the ROMs and menuing
system), and were in charge of all manufacturing. I.E. If Atari wanted more
FB2s (or 2+'s) they had to go through us and the manufacturer we had
partnered with in Taiwan. So we knew exactly what was manufactured already.
These other units started showing up en masse at Kroger and it's
affiliates, and we knew it was far to many to be just previous unsold
pallets sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Then we started getting contacted
by people complaining about buying these Kroger FB2's and they're not
working right out of the box. Managing to get a hold of one we noticed
right away the internals were different, including poor attempts at
reproducing our two custom chips. Contacting Kroger we traced the source
(Tommo and their unnamed manufacturing source in China) and then I arranged
contact between Kroger and Atari (the Kroger manager I talked to was very
upset upon learning they were selling unlicensed pirate versions of the
console and co-operated fully). At that point we stepped away from it other
than producing a full report for Atari that broke down the pirate console
and it's differences.

Somehow, someone managed to get a hold of molds and some of the tech specs
from our manufacturer (I can only speculate how) and had set up shop
reproducing these really bad knockoffs.

You can read a bit more about what all happened by browsing through this
thread here at AtariAge and see how to identify the pirate models.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/173494-original-flashback2-sighting-2499/


On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 12:08 PM, John Andersen <gamerep at hotmail.com> wrote:


> Hey everyone,

>

> Over the past several months Tommo has been embroiled in legal issues with

> SNK Playmore.  What was supposed to be licensed games on a NEO GEO branded

> handheld with game packs and a NEO GEO joystick reproduction from Tommo has

> now turned into finger-pointing and threats from both sides just as

> recently as last week from SNK Playmore.

>

> I know that Atari filed a lawsuit against Tommo around July of 2011

> alleging Tommo was producing (or had acquired) bootleg Atari Flashback 2

> consoles.  Not sure what happened after that.

>

> I'm wondering if SNK cancelled its contract with Tommo after finding out

> about these allegations?  Can anyone shed light on what's going on?  It's

> just unfortunate that this has happened in terms of preserving these games

> in the retail spotlight.

>

> Regards,

>

> John Andersen

>

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>



-- 
Marty
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