Nintendo didn't sue Galoob for the Game Genie, they merely got their product removed from store shelves by bullying the stores. Basically a sort of "If you carry this unlicensed product, we'll have to short your order on the latest hit games, because you know there's a chip shortage, right?" Galoob sued and said people had a right to play the game the way they wanted to, and won a $50 million judgement in their favor.
Pretty great summary honestly. I know Nintendo were huge bullies in the 80’s, but as I understood it they just sued everyone into the ground cause they could… didn’t know they had to get creative/take it to the streets to maintain their monopoly
My mom to this day has SMB1 Game Genie codes memorized out of a book we bought on vacation one year. We used to ask her all the time for "stop on a dime" which removed the skidding/momentum and "infinite lives" which is self explanatory.
That last code for the debug mode also lets you cycle between powerups mid-level with the select button, and if you hold a face button while doing it, it gives you the shoe in any level.
Wisher: "Eternal dragon, by your name, I summon you forth...Shenron!" Shenron: "Why have you summoned me? Tell me your wish now." Wisher: "Y-P-X-X-L-V-G-E" Shenron: "Your wish cannot be granted because the guardian of Earth created me. I cannot grant a wish that exceeds his power." Wisher: "Oh... okay. How about, A-E-U-G-N-S-S-L" Shenron: "Your wish has been granted."
@@jarrod752 Yeah, I can imagine a real life game genie being like a monkeys paw lol Wish for something, but the code ends up glitching life in some horrendous way.
From a legal perspective, Nintendo lost the case because the Game Genie DOES NOT actually permanently alter the actual code - that would have been an illegal creation of a derivative work. When somebody used a Game Genie, the original cartridge remains absolutely 100% intact, the Game Genie simply TEMPORARILY altered the code for a single game session (and the player is the one choosing how to alter it, not the Game Genie itself).
Man this brings back so many memories of my childhood. I had a Game Genie as a kid growing up and I would play Mario 3 with it and I would use the Skywalker code and Start and Stay as Hammer Brother which would lead to a glitch at the end of the game if you didn't hold up on the controller's d pad after you defeated Bowser the game would pause forever.
I too used these codes. I never realized until later the Skywalker is the reason I never got soft locked in world 6. I also never saw the credits because I would get the infinite pause, and my kid brain just assumed that was the end of the game.
I used to use the same 3 codes: Infinite lives (SLXGLOVS), Skywalker (SXEZSKOZ) and start and stay as hammer Mario (XNKXGLIE). I never realized until much later the Skywalker was saving me from being soft locked in world 6 where tail is required. Also, whenever I beat Bowser while using these Game Genie codes, the door to peach would only open for a fraction of a second and then the game would pause forever.
Pretty sure the manual had a note that said you had to press and hold up on the door or something to avoid the softlock. I always the same with start and stay as hammer mario. Sometimes I did fire mario.
Oh man. Game Genie was so cool. I had the GB and SNES versions. Unfortunately I never knew how it worked and just thought it that it was actual, built-in, secret codes, so I never had the fun of experimenting with and learning about hex-editing.
1:23 i was today years old when i learned this, and i had this back in the day too.. Game genie was also available for sega, snes and gameboy, and probably some others too, not just the NES, but the NES one is arguably the most well known
I remember renting that and using the book to input codes for Mario 3, it was super interesting. I loved trying it on the other games too. I had one for SNES as well it was fun to mess around.
So you gotta remember the game genie was just an address location and a value to force it to be. Bouncing off an enemy is a different area in the code than standard jumping. You were effectively just setting Mario's jump speed to very high. Your holes in the ground and display stuff is just breaking the level renderer or possibly forcing a specific tile set.
Ah the simpler days, when we thought blowing into the cartridges was a way to clean them, and we thought cheat device codes worked as they did deliberately just like in-game cheat codes rather than editing some arbitrary memory address.
About twenty years ago I soldered a Game Genie directly to the 72 pin male connector on an NES motherboard. The NES wouldn't read games very well and it wasn't as easy to find third party replacement 72 pin connectors at the time. It worked every time after that, but since the motherboard wouldn't fit in the case with the GG hanging off of it I made a case out of cardboard and duck tape. You could smack it while it was on and it didn't glitch either. Unfortunately I ended up losing it while I was a couch-surfer for a few years lol 🤷♂
Common misconception, Nintendo didn't sue over the game genie. Code Masters and Camerica pre-emptively filed suit to legitimize the product. This is also why Sega licensed it, they didn't want to waste time in court. If Nintendo sued the court case would have been called Nintendo of America, Inc. v. Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. Plaintiff comes first in case names.
Liked, commented, subscribed and set notifications for this channel. I knew you were a WR holder in a lot of Mario stuff, but I didn't realize you were also this entertaining dude. I have a lot of content to catch up on lol
Sí, el señor Mitch Poder de planta de fuego es muy bueno, más divertido que Poo, Larl o Geek, buenas vibras como Ryu, sólo el pequeño Kirbs me gusta más
As the discoverer of the debug mode code (in its original 6-letter format in the 1990s), I explain briefly on my channel (and on my old site) how I stumbled upon the code and how it became modified to the 8-letter code in 2001. The infinite lives code you use isn't really needed, since debug mode can already start you with 99 lives by pressing the A button 19 times on the title screen, just in case you decide on using some other 3rd code.
I remember my game genie not messing up any of the games. The NES, however lol The GGs card that goes into the NES is slightly bigger than a normal cartridge, so over time it stretches the NES' prongs to the point games wont load without the GG. So, after using the GG for so long, I had to use it with _every_ game just to play them, even if I didnt use any codes.
As a kid, I used the infinite lives code, permanent Fire Mario, and an infinite jump code that is pretty close to a P-Wing. (It's similar to that skywalk code, but you fell normally. It just meant that Mario was always registered as being on the ground.)
I once found a Game Genie code that let you grab any block in the stage to throw, and another that lets you create blocks from under you with a button combo.
@@freedustinbecause that's all the cheat devices are doing anyways, and many emulator developers have already coded GameGenie/GameShark/etc functionality in. So yeah, you can use either method but they are the same thing. The only difference is if you use already made codes you don't have to waste time experimenting with values since someone already did the work.
While now it's easy to get repair kits for your NES to fix this problem properly, "back in the day" my NES got to where it wouldn't even register a game pak was loaded *without* having it attached to a Game Genie because of the notorious bent pin issue 😜
That three wishes thing is 🤯 For us Dutchies a Game Genie sounds different, as a kid I always said Game Guh-nee. A genie (guh-nee) is a genious. So in the end it all worked out 😂
My parents refused to get us a Game Genie. They said it was cheating. In reality, they weren't going to throw money away on more crap for the kids. So instead of denying the request outright, instill some ethics in there.
I see a Game Genie every time I open the drawer with my NES games. I have 2 for NES and one has a pouch with 5 books. It's actually awesome! When I was a kid I would use it to make finicky cartridges work... super familiar with Game Genie. I guess most of your audience is 12 year olds or something.
Just seeing video. You need to try this....plug in MULTIPLE GAME GENIES TOGETHER....Each one connected gives you 3 lines of code. Most we had to try was 4 and all 12 lines of code work....do your 1st 3 lines..press start..next game genie in chain will activate and so on until game starts....AND ALL CODES WILL WORK....just REMEMBER.....multi line codes all need to be put in same game genie screen before moving to next game genie screen or actual game
I forgot all about the game genie. Gonna try and find a way to put it on my SNES emulator for my 5 year old just so he can have infinite lives in some of these games he's been trying to play
