1990 Konami
Platform: SEGA Mega Drive
It’s early days with our next entry, but its always been wondered why Konami’s Aliens arcade game never appeared on home consoles or computers. According though to Jaz Rignall back in November 1990 of Mean Machines, a Mega Drive version was in the pipeline.
“You’ll be pleased to hear that a Mega Drive version of Aliens is in the pipeline, but I don’t think it’ll appear until the middle of next year.” Jaz replied to a reader who had written in asking about the game.
Sadly, nothing was to appear at all – and so when Martyn Carroll covered the game in issue 243 of Retro Gamer magazine, he asked Julian about it. Julian couldn’t recall the exact details, but he definitely remembered hearing from an insider at SEGA that Konami were developing it.
Martyn dug further, contacting Emil Heidkamp, who was senior vice president of Konami of America at the time. They confirmed that the arcade was a huge hit for them, but couldn’t recall why they didn’t convert the game to home machines.
The question is whether what Jaz heard was accurate, and if so – how far did the conversion get, who was behind it and why was it ultimately cancelled?
Was there any press about a conversion beyond what Jaz had mentioned? If you know anything more about this potential conversion – please get in touch!
With thanks to Ross Sillifant for highlighting, Martyn Carroll for his research and Archive.org for scans.
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