Elite Systems
| Elite Systems Limited | |
 |
|
| Founded | 1984 |
| Headquarters | Walsall, West Midlands, England |
| Website | bmginteractive.com |
| Other Names | MotiveTime |
Elite Systems, Ltd. is an English game development company founded by Richard and Steve Wilcox. The company was established under the name Richard Wilcox Software. They were known for their Commodore 64 games such as Airwolf, Commando, and Ghosts 'N Goblins. During their NES development, they didn't put credits in their games, but it is unknown why.
Elite started a subsidiary called MotiveTime. Most of the development team from Elite would move over to MotiveTime and would pay their employees bonuses based on the company's profits, but over time, the profits eventually reduced to virtually nothing. According to one of the developers, what may have happened is MotiveTime's profits were kept deliberately low so as not to pay out big bonuses. One way this was done was by the company leasing computer equipment and office space off Elite at inflated prices as well as using some of the remaining Elite staff as "consultants".
Later, some former Elite staff members formed NMS Software. Some ex-Elite staff would also create Arc Developments.
Contents
Games
Music Development
Commodore 64
On games, according to HVSC, the first two soundtracks and driver are by Neil Bate. In February 1985, Mark Cooksey joined and was given Bate's driver for his first games. Apart from that, everyone used their own drivers. Programmers often asked Cooksey to arrange their favorite songs, believing computer music to be a gray area in copyright.
On loaders, Elite initially used Novaload's example song, and from September 1985 to April 1986, Living on Video, again arranged by Cooksey upon an unnamed programmer's request.
NES
All of Elite's NES games were composed by Mark Cooksey. He wrote the music in Notator for the Atari ST, and would use a utility to convert his music to his sound driver. Mark would use the same sound driver for his work with Spidersoft on their game Cliffhanger (NES) and NMS Software for a couple games.
Audio Personnel
- Chris Davison - Title music composer for Dragon's Lair (SNES); 1993
- Chris Harvey
- David Whittaker
- Jason Brooke - Arranger on Space Harrier (AMI), Ikari Warriors PAL (C64) and composer on Supertrux (C64); 1988
- Mark Cooksey - Lead composer (in-house 1985 - 1986, freelance 1987 - 1988, in-house 1989 - 1990)
- Paul Walker
- Richard Frankish - SNES sound driver programmer; 1988-1985
- Rob Hubbard - Composer for Commando (C64) and Thundercats (C64); 1985, 1987
- Rob Mann - Composer and sound programmer; 1991-1993
- Stuart Middleton - Sound programmer.
- Tim Round - Sound programmer.
- Tony Williams - Composer for Power Slide ECTS Demo (SNES)
- Trevor Scott - Credited for music in Dragon's Lair (GEN)
Image Gallery
Elite logo first used in 1985.
MotiveTime logo used from 1990-1993.
Links
- mobygames.com/company/elite-systems-ltd - MobyGames.
