Elite Systems

Founded: 1984 (as Richard Wilcox Software)

Headquarters:

Anchor House, Anchor Road, Aldridge, Walsall, West Midlands, England, United Kingdom, WS9 8PW

Elite Systems Ltd., often known simply as Elite is a UK-based developer established in 1984. It was originally called Richard Wilcox Software, but was quickly renamed after publishing only one game; Blue Thunder for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit computers.

History

Elite Systems began using its current name in August 1984, with their first product under this label being Kokotoni Wilf. It soon established a reputation for producing games based on movie and TV licenses, starting with a home computer adaption of Airwolf the same year, before going on to port North American and Japanese arcade hits such as Ghosts 'n Goblins and Paperboy. It was responsible for some home computer ports of Space Harrier.

Elite established a budget label called Encore, and published compilations under the Hit-Pak banner, while an "associate company", Motivetime, Ltd. was established as Elite's game development arm. During the 1990s the company worked on a variety of projects both for computers and home video game consoles (usually Nintendo systems), before switching to mobile phone game development in around 2002.

Today Elite mainly specialises in software for smartphones.