Tell me about Innovation

[Azathoth]

I remember staring in awe at their print ads back in the day, full page ads with dozens of games and products mentioned that all looked awesome. Ten years after the fact I realize that a lot of the crap they were planning on releasing never made it, along with their ties to other unlicensed software and hardware manufacturers.

I came across some N64-controller shaped Famiclones the other day and was surprised to find they produced stuff that new (well, that's not really new... but you know what I mean). Seems like someone ran across a large pile of NOS Game Wizards for SNES that were auctioned off for $50USD over the past few years on ebay also.

I don't have one of their print ads handy but may still have a copy in a few of the old game magazines I managed to keep. Does anyone know anything about the history of this company; what games/software they actually did release and what they planned on but didn't?

[taizou]

I know they released a version of that GBA TV adapter so they must have stuck around at least that long... Aside from that, I'm pretty sure they were behind the US releases of Realtec games (Funnyworld/Balloon Boy, Whac-A-Critter, Defend the Earth), including the (very rare) Smash Controller, so at least a few of their games made it out there.

I think the person selling Game Wizards on Ebay is either a former employee or they somehow inherited a bunch of Innovation's old stock though - the same seller seems to have a lot of Innovation branded accessories mostly from the early 2000's by the looks of things. I also remember someone, possibly the same person, recently selling off a "rare" "prototype" of Magic Girl that was sent to Innovation for evaluation, which from all appearances was just the regular Taiwanese release. So maybe you could ask them for more info on the company...

[codeman38]

There's some sort of connection between Innovation and Datel as well; Innovation released one version of Datel's GB Booster. (Y'know, the Game Boy Player-type thing that couldn't actually emulate sound and played an ear-splitting loop instead.) Here's photographic proof of the Innovation-branded version.

Edit: That, or they both licensed the device from the same Taiwanese manufacturer... I'd have thought Datel developed it in-house, especially given the Action Replay component, but who knows.

[Azathoth]

I don't own one, but I'm pretty sure the Game Wizard is just a rebranded version of the first Action Replay for SNES/MD.

After looking at the ebay seller's stock I was extremely surprised to see the patch cable that runs from the Game Gear's expansion port to an extra SMS/MD controller. That was the most curious thing I found in their ads and up until now I figured it was just pie in the sky Action Enterprises shit. Do actual English conversions exist of the stuff they were going to license and release? Seems like I've played a few of the games in their original Chinese form but I don't recall seeing Innovation ever mentioned on the credits.

[Parodius Duh]

taizou

Oct 13 2011, 03:27:55 AM

I think the person selling Game Wizards on Ebay is either a former employee or they somehow inherited a bunch of Innovation's old stock though - the same seller seems to have a lot of Innovation branded accessories mostly from the early 2000's by the looks of things. I also remember someone, possibly the same person, recently selling off a "rare" "prototype" of Magic Girl that was sent to Innovation for evaluation, which from all appearances was just the regular Taiwanese release. So maybe you could ask them for more info on the company...

[/quote]I know of this person. They ran a game shop in my hometown and the owner actually did Jail time for bootlegging cd games. Shop was called "Ultimate Video Gamers Club" or something in Old Saybrook, CT. As far as I know he has no ties to innovation and just had bought a lot of their merchandise at a closeout price.

[Azathoth]

Managed to dig through some of my old magazines last night and found a few of the ads from Innovation around '93-'94. I don't have a scanner so I'll try to take some clear pictures with my camera and post them on here tonight. Here's a link I found of what seems to be an updated advertisement

I was surprised to find that most of their hardware that was advertised was actually released. A couple of things that I never actually saw were their Game Wizard rebranding of the Pro Action Replay for Game Boy and Game Gear. Also there was a newer version of the SNES Game Wizard advertised later on that had a completely different shell than any Datel product I've seen, the code switch looked like a sliding button in the center of the cart. Plus, on top of the SNES Game Wizard was a SNES mockup cart of Dooley the Dinosaur (!).

All of these games don't have screenshots but just drawings representing the games. Can anyone verify just exactly what the hell they are, or what happened to them? Took five minutes to search and looks like I covered the bases. If anyone knows anything else please feel free to add. HG101's page on Daou Infosys

Game Gear:
Cave Dude - "24 levels of Stone Age action" No idea on this one.This post says it was Toto World 3
Dooley the Dinosaur - Remember this being dumped, was it the GG or SMS versions, or both? Or the same thing?
Street Hero - "Awesome fighting/action game, 4 megs of awesome graphics" ?? Dumped recently as the English version of The General's Son Looks like the SMS version was recently dumped also.
Street Battle - One-on-one fighter, supposedly programmed to be compatible with their Master Link adapter cable According to this post it was Jang Pung II and yep, Innovation had some balls about them.

NES
Buzz & Waldog - "24 levels of wacky adventure!" Is the dumped version of this considered the final game?
Street Battle - "5 Meg action/fighting game" Same drawing as GG version. 5 megs? NES version of The General's Son, right? Still undumped?

[KingPepe]

The SMS version of Dooley was dumped and Buzz & Waldog I think is definitely finished since it's just a graphics hack of the original. I thought General's Son (NES) was called Street Hero though as well. (the original Korean version of the game is dumped though)