Bit Managers
From Sega Retro
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| Bit Managers | ||
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| Founded: 1988 | ||
| Defunct: 2017 | ||
Headquarters:
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Bit Managers was a Spanish home computer software developer founded in 1988 as New Frontier. As most contemporary Spanish developers did, they started programming games for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and MSX computer systems, the most popular gaming gaming platforms in the late eighties in Spain, as the casette tape format allowed lowering the manufacturing costs and selling the titles at reduced market prices. It was then when the company secured a deal with Infogrames to do the conversions to these platforms of many of their games, starting a long lasting relationship with the French company that eventually became their best contractor client.
In 1992, New Frontier changed its name to Bit Managers and it was then when Infogrames allowed them to make games for 8-bit and 16-bit consoles, a first for a Spanish developer, due to the Spanish development community struggling to transition from the cheap 8-bit computers to the more expensive development costs involved with 16-bit computers and also with consoles. It was then when their output mostly consistent on licensed titles based on Franco-Belgian comics such as Astérix, The Smurfs, Spirou or The Adventures of Tintin. Their expertise especifically acquired on the Game Boy platform development also led them to start working with Acclaim Entertainment in 1997 on the long-running adaptations of the Turok series for that platform and its successor, the Game Boy Color. Bit Managers was notorious for being the first third party developer to create games for the colored revision of the handheld Nintendo console.
In 1998, Bit Managers was acquired by the Spanish arcade videogames company Gaelco. They continued to develop games mostly for their usual Game Boy and Game Boy Color contractor companies, but it was then when they were able to create 3D titles too, such as the PlayStation conversions of the arcade Gaelco games Speed Up and Radikal Bikers. After entering the Game Boy Advance market, in 2005 the Spanish video game company Virtual Toys bought Bit Managers and renamed it to Virtual Toys Barcelona, becoming a fully owned subsidiary. The studio kept on developing games for their new parent company until its bankruptcy in 2017, when they were forced to close doors after nearly 30 years of continued existence. [1] [2] [3]