Home Entertainment Suppliers
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| Home Entertainment Suppliers Pty. Ltd. | |
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| Type | Privately-held |
| Founded | 1984 |
| Headquarters | Punchbowl, Sydney, Australia |
| Industry | Computer and video games |
| Subsidiaries | Tru Blu Entertainment |
| Website | http://www.hes.net/ |
Home Entertainment Suppliers Pty. Ltd. (or HES) is an Australian company that distributes computer games and gaming equipment. HES offices are based in Punchbowl, Sydney.
They began distributing Commodore 64 titles such as Pitfall! in 1982 and Kung-Fu Master in 1985 and Atari 2600 titles nearing the end of the 1980's under the name Activision.
HES still remains a dominant distributor within Australia, despite not being well known. HES currently is the distributor for Saiteks [1], Gamester [2] and Mad Catz [3] joysticks, cables, memory cards, and other peripherals. HES also remains the official Australian distributor for Action Replay.
Quite a large number of software titles are currently also being distributed by HES for Windows, Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Game Boy Advance by publishers ZOO Digital Publishing, Tru Blu Entertainment and Phantagram.
In the past, HES had gained a reputation for developing and distributing some interesting peripherals such as their auto fire controllers, Game Boy power adaptors, Master System converters for the Mega Drive and adapters for NES games such as the HES Unidaptor and HES Unidaptor MKII.
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[edit] Nintendo Entertainment System
[edit] Unlicensed
In the late 1980s and early 1990s HES ported games from American Game Cartridges, American Video Entertainment (AVE), Bit Corp, Color Dreams, EPYX, Thin Chen Enterprise (Sachen, Joy Van, etc) and Tengen onto the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) as unlicensed titles, very much against what Nintendo wanted. Some of the games HES distributed had no companies credited and their developers remain unknown. Most games were released in plastic cases like a video box with printed instructions on the inside, however sometimes the AVE titles were released in their original AVE boxes with a HES sticker simply stuck over AVE's original one. HES at the time became widely known for their unlicensed distribution of NES games at budget prices. Nintendo tried to fight against all unlicensed companies by introducing a Nintendo Seal of Quality on all their products spreading propaganda that only titles adorning the symbol are guaranteed to operate on their NES hardware. To combat this, HES introduced their own seal that mimicked Nintendo’s seal, possibly in the hope of confusing buyers.
In a further attempt to limit the success of unlicensed companies, Nintendo changed the hardware of later revisions of the NES, so unlicensed games would no longer work. Therefore, early HES games are not compatible with many of the later NES consoles. In order to circumvent this, HES developed the 'Piggy Back' or 'Dongle' games, where one could insert an official NES cart into the HES game and it operated the country code of the official title instead of HES'. This was so successful that HES also used the same technology to build a device to entirely bypass the 10NES security protocol which was released as the HES Unidaptor. The adapter allowed 72-pin and 60-pin NTSC NES/Famicom games to be played on a PAL NES.
HES introduced games to Australia that were not released elsewhere in the western world, and these have become very sought after classics. However, HES also chose to release their multigame cartridges and a few of their single game titles in very limited numbers. Such titles are extremely scarce and thus nearly impossible to find.
[edit] NES Titles
- 4 in 1 Fun Blaster Pak (Pipemania, Twin Eagle, Metal Fighter and Little Red Hood)
- 4 in 1 Fun Pak (Pac man, Sidewinder, Duck Maze & Othello)
- 4 in 1 Mind Blower Pak (Math Quiz, Jackpot, Arctic Adventure, Galactic Crusader)
- Real Player's Pack 6-Pak (Rarest Known HES Game) Has The Same Unique Games As The (Caltron 6 in 1/Myriad 6 in 1)
- Arctic Adventure
- Chiller
- Death Race
- Duck Maze
- F15 City War
- Impossible Mission 2
- Jackpot
- Little Red Hood (By Thin Chen Enterprise as Sachen)
- Maxi 15
- NARC
- Othello
- Pac man
- Pipemania
- Raid 2020
- Pyramid
- R.B.I Baseball
- Sidewinder
- Silent Assault
- Super Sprint
- Toobin
- Twin Eagle
[edit] 4 Pak All Action
'4 Pak All Action was an 1995 unlicensed video game for the Sega Master System, that was released exclusively in Australia. It includes 4 games; Power Block, Adventure Kid, Twin Mouse, and Cave Dude.[1]
[edit] Atari 2600 Titles
HES released quite a few titles and multi game packs for the Atari 2600 Video Computer System. The cartridges are virtually identical to the Activision cartridges, but the Activision logo on the underside is blacked out.
- Smash Hit Pak (5-in-1 cartridge: Frogger, Stampede, Seaquest, Boxing, Skiing)
- Super Hit Pak (5-in-1 cartridge: River Raid, Grand Prix, Fishing Derby, Sky Jinks, Checkers)
