Camerica

Shipping

1989 – 2006

Closed

1992

Developed

0

Published

15

HQ

🇨🇦 Canada

Camerica was a company owned and operated by David J. Harding. It was a video game company that was notable for producing unlicensed Nintendo Entertainment System games and hardware. It was founded in 1988 and published games through 1992. It created a number of peripherals for the NES, including the Aladdin Deck Enhancer. Camerica had the rights to publish most of Codemasters' game titles, both on the NES and the Deck Enhancer. Thor Aackerlund was a spokesperson for the brand. Camerica created many early peripherals for the NES, such as Supersonic The Joystick, a wireless controller add-on.[1] However, they soon let their license expire for unknown reasons, while leaving many of these products on the market. Nintendo sued Camerica and their USA distributor, Galoob Toy, many times. Camerica and Galoob Toy prevailed every time. There were lawsuits in California, New York and Canada. Nintendo had to pay Galoob Toy USD$15,000,000 in damages over one of those lawsuits. Since Camerica still lacked license to produce NES games, they had to create their own cartridges that would bypass Nintendo's lock-out chip. Like the circuit used in Color Dreams cartridges, the Camerica lock-out defeat generated glitch pulses that froze the chip. The cartridges they made were shaped slightly differently from Nintendo's cartridges, though they still fit in the NES. The most notable difference however was in color: all Camerica cartridges were gold and later silver. They also featured a switch for play on European NES consoles. Camerica released the Codemasters-designed Game Genie in Canada and the UK.