racketboy wrote:Yeah that would be my line of thinking as well. If Nintendo owns all the graphical likenesses, reverse engineering should take care of the rest. And Miyamoto did the level designs, correct?
I believe so.
In regards to the legal issues, I did a little digging and came up with this from Wikipedia. I think this is why there is so much speculation about the legality of duplicating Donkey Kong's arcade code.
According to some sources [2][3][4][5] in the early 80s, Ikegami developed a number of arcade games as a subcontractor to Japanese video game companies. Among the games they may have developed are Computer Othello, Block Fever, Monkey Magic, Congo Bongo, Popeye, Donkey Kong, Radar Scope, Sheriff, Space Fever, Space Firebird, Space Demon, Heli Fire, Sky Skipper, Space Launcher and Zaxxon.[2] At that time, computer programs were not recognized as copyrightable material. According to these sources, Ikegami proceeded to sue Nintendo for unauthorized duplication of the Donkey Kong program code for the latter's creation of Donkey Kong Junior (1983, Tokyo District Court), but it was not until 1989 that the Tokyo High Court gave a verdict that acknowledged the originality of program code. In 1990, Ikegami and Nintendo reached a settlement, terms of which were never disclosed.[6]