Kinesoft

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Kinesoft Development was a video game development company founded by Peter Sills in 1991^[1]. Mark Achler joined the company in 1994 to serve as president. Along with Director of Technology, Andrew Glaister, Mr. Sills developed the concept which became known as Exodus, a video-game development environment for Windows 95. Andrew Glaister took this concept and turned it into reality. This caught the attention of IBM, Intel, Sega, and, of course, Microsoft. Microsoft then used the basic concepts and their relationship with Kinesoft to develop a new set of technologies called "DirectX" which forms the basis of all gaming under Windows to this day.

Kinesoft's conversion of Pitfall!, called Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure (1994), was the first commercial game release for Windows 95 and was touted by Bill Gates at that year's COMDEX tradeshow as the launch of the new DirectX technologies for Windows 95.^[2]

In 1995, Kinesoft entered into an extensive third-party deal with GameBank, a company setup by SoftBank and Microsoft to bring console titles to Windows^[3] for the Japanese marketplace by using its unique talents and tool-sets to convert existing Sega Genesis titles to Windows 95. These "ports" were later expanded to include Nintendo and some early Sony Playstation titles as well.