Elite Systems | Code Like It's 198x

In 1985 Steve Wilcox and his father, Brian, were shown into a large hotel suite in London to bid for the home computer rights to Capcom’s arcade game Commando. Ocean’s Jon Woods had told them not to bother. Brian offered £25,000; Steve, sure the game would sell in six figures, raised it to £65,000 on the spot. “My old man, to his credit, didn’t even flinch,” he told Retro Gamer twenty years later. Elite’s Commando was the number one game that Christmas, and for the next two years the small publisher from Aldridge, near Walsall, turned out one arcade conversion after another: Bomb Jack, Ghosts ’n Goblins, Paperboy, Space Harrier.

Fast facts

Formed: August 1984, as Elite Systems Ltd, out of Richard Wilcox Software. Companies House records the company’s incorporation on 14 August 1984.
Run by: Steve Wilcox and his father, Brian, who in 1987 owned the company between them. Steve’s younger brother, Richard, wrote its first game.
Address: Anchor House, Anchor Road, Aldridge, Walsall, from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s; later Burntwood, Staffordshire.
Licences: Airwolf, The Fall Guy, The Dukes of Hazzard, Scooby Doo, Frank Bruno’s Boxing; coin-ops from Capcom (Commando, 1942, Ghosts ’n Goblins), Tecmo (Bomb Jack), Atari Games (Paperboy), Sega (Space Harrier) and Tatsumi (Buggy Boy, licensed through Data East USA).
Awards: Software House of the Year in Computer and Video Games’ Golden Joysticks and in Amtix‘s readers’ awards, both for 1986.
CRASH scores: Ghosts ’n Goblins 95%, Commando 94%, Bomb Jack 92%, Scooby Doo 91%, Airwolf 90%, Paperboy 88%, Frank Bruno’s Boxing 86%, Kokotoni Wilf 84%, Space Harrier 77%.

A shop, a brother and Blue Thunder

Elite began in a computer shop. Steve Wilcox had a chemistry degree and ten months in industry behind him when he opened a shop in a Walsall back street. He called it Bowies, after his favourite musician, and by autumn 1983, Commodore Computing International reported, he was selling Spectrums “by the truckload”. His younger brother Richard had taught himself to program on a computer their father brought home from a failed venture into business software, and had written a shoot-’em-up for the Atari 400. Their father told them they should be making games, not just selling them. Richard converted his game for the Spectrum as Blue Thunder, and when they took it to W H Smith’s head office, Steve recalled, the buyers ordered 5,000 copies, about £12,000 worth.

Blue Thunder came out in 1983 under the name Richard Wilcox Software, when Richard was 15. He was still at school, so Steve hired four local teenagers to write more. Their first game, Kokotoni Wilf, was the first release under the new name. CRASH reported in October 1984 that “Elite Systems Ltd., formed from Richard Wilcox Software” had launched it, with Steve as sales and marketing manager, and gave the game 84%. It was a 63-location arcade adventure for the Spectrum at £5.95, which Elite’s advertising said would “match or best Jet Set Willy”. Commodore Computing International called it Elite’s first Commodore game and said it reached number four in the charts.

Paying for a name

The Wilcoxes noticed that the games that sold were the ones that looked like something from the arcade or the television. Elite’s first official licence, The Fall Guy, was a television tie-in; “It was pretty awful,” Steve Wilcox admitted. Airwolf was better business. By Steve Wilcox’s account, Elite offered £3,000 for the licence through MCA’s British agent, and kept it by appealing directly to MCA when Ocean offered more. Richard wrote the game in three weeks, Commodore Computing International reported, and CRASH gave it 90%. Accounts of its sales differ: over 200,000 in the 1987 profile, over 100,000 in Steve Wilcox’s account in 2005.

Frank Bruno’s Boxing (1985) used a person instead of a programme. Steve went to Frank Warren’s gym in East London to pitch it: “None of them knew what a computer was!” ACE later called the game “effectively a version of the arcade scrapping game, Punch Out”; its designer, Paul Holmes, said it was “quite heavily influenced by Super Punch-Out!!”.

Commando and the Tokyo show

The Commando deal, done in August 1985, came through Electrocoin, a British arcade operator that did business with Capcom’s Kenzo Tsujimoto. Your Computer noted that Elite’s version was “developed with the aid of Capcom” and had “the cachet of being the official version”. Elite defended that position hard. Alligata’s Who Dares Wins looked very like Commando, and ZZAP!64 reported in December 1985 that Elite, having bought the rights to the arcade game, had objected to it; Alligata released a Who Dares Wins II instead. In Wilcox’s account, Elite obtained a High Court order that let it seize Alligata’s stock. Commando shifted 200,000 copies, by his count, and on the Commodore 64 it carried music by Rob Hubbard.

Before Commando was even out, Wilcox flew to the Tokyo game show in September 1985. He found himself, he said, the only British publisher there, phoned his father, and was told to sign everything worth having. He came back with Paperboy, Space Harrier and Bomb Jack, among others. Paul Holmes and Andy Williams wrote the Spectrum Bomb Jack; Holmes recalled locking the whole game to the 50Hz screen refresh so that it moved as smoothly as the arcade machine, and CRASH gave it 92%. Ghosts ’n Goblins scored 95%, “a genuine first rate copy of the arcade game”. Paperboy, Wilcox said, sold more than 400,000 copies on home computers.

Software House of the Year

1986 was Elite’s best year. Computer and Video Games’ readers voted it Software House of the Year in the Golden Joysticks, and Amtix’s readers did the same, ahead of Gremlin Graphics and Gargoyle Games; Ikari Warriors also took Amtix’s award for best sound effects, and Commando shared third place for best music. According to Wilcox, turnover rose from about £600,000 in Elite’s first year to £1.5 million, and passed £3 million in 1986.

Commodore Computing International visited in June 1987 and found the company above a tandoori restaurant and a ladies’ hairdresser, with a black Jaguar and a gold Lotus Esprit in the car park. It described 27-year-old Steve as “reputedly” the youngest software millionaire in Britain, and credited Brian, a retired foundry owner, with bringing “quality control” to games. Elite’s method, it reported, was to hand each conversion to a different programmer or team for each machine so that the Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad versions could be released at once. The company was also willing to throw work away: “We’ve invested £50,000 in a project and thrown it away.” It planned twelve releases for 1987, six of them arcade conversions. New machines had to prove themselves first. Asked by 8000 Plus in October 1986 whether Elite would publish for Amstrad’s PCW, Wilcox said: “obviously it’s an extension to the market, but we’ve really got to suck it and see.”

Much of the work was done by freelancers. In early 1987 Elite advertised in Atari ST User for “a small number of top-flight programmers” to work for “Britain’s Number 1 independent Entertainment Software Publisher” on the Atari ST and Amiga: “Initially conversions of high-profile coin-op titles are offered.” Holmes remembered the change from in-house programmers to contractors around the time of Bomb Jack.

Not everything was finished. Elite’s Scooby Doo began as an attempt at a cartoon game in the style of the laserdisc arcade game Dragon’s Lair. The Italian magazine K reported that Elite spent a great deal of money and time, under Richard Wilcox’s direction, on this “cinematic” version before giving it up. The game that finally came out in 1986, a platform game programmed by Gargoyle Games, scored 91% in CRASH.

Elite also worried about fakes. From January 1986 its advertisements carried a warning: “Every single ELITE product carries the unique ELITE Holographic sticker. Make sure your copy does — it’s your guarantee of quality.” Holograms were still, in CRASH’s words a few months earlier, “a comparatively rare commodity”.

Compilations and budget re-releases

By the late 1980s Elite was selling its back catalogue again. Its compilations included Frank Bruno’s Big Box, Fists and Throttles and the Thrilltime collections, “lavishly packaged in unique collector boxes and mastered onto premium quality Gold and Platinum cassettes”, with each game on its own side “for maximum reliability”. ACE called Elite the “chief compilation station in the late eighties” in January 1989: “It seems to us that it was the first firm to bring out a blockbusting compilation.”

In May 1988 ACE reported that Commando, Airwolf and Frank Bruno’s Boxing were heading for £1.99, and that the money would help pay for 16-bit games; the company was “particularly proud of ST Buggy Boy and Space Harrier”. The budget label became Encore, which promised that full-price games would not reach it until three years after their release (see Budget games).

Wilcox later said Elite gave up on licences when agents pushed the prices up. One of Atari’s agents wanted £50,000 up front for 720°. Elite spent 1987 to 1989 building an in-house team for original games such as Overlander, Beyond the Ice Palace and Hopping Mad, which by his own account sold poorly. ACE was unimpressed by 1989’s Dogs of War, “another Ikari Warriors clone”, and remembered that Elite’s best games — “Kokotoni Wilf, Bombjack, Bombjack II, Ghosts and Goblins” — had been “the least complex” and relied “most on addictive gameplay”.

Consoles, PCs and phones

Wilcox had seen the Famicom’s success on his trips to Japan and had a subcontractor reverse-engineer it to write NES games. Elite showed Nintendo a version of Dragon’s Lair, developed by Motivetime, at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1990, and became one of the first European publishers of NES games. In the early 1990s it published for Nintendo’s consoles and the Game Boy, with the Nintendo Seal of Quality on its advertisements. Its biggest console game was Striker, a football game for the Super NES made with Rage Software, which by Wilcox’s account sold more than 200,000 copies. Elite also published Virtuoso, a Motivetime shooting game for the 3DO released in December 1994. 3DO Magazine gave it one star: “just about the worst Doom variant around”.

Wilcox said Elite lost £2 million at the end of 1994, when Sony, which was distributing European publishers’ games, cut the price it would pay for new products. After that Elite worked as a developer, for the PlayStation and then the PC; Test Drive: Off-Road, published by Accolade, was by his account its first million-seller. In 1996 Edge reported that the “expansion-hungry” company was offering free drinks to students on its recruiting coach.

From about 2002 Elite turned to mobile phones, re-acquiring the rights to Bomb Jack, Buggy Boy, Ikari Warriors and Paperboy, which it licensed from Midway Games West, the successor to Atari Games. “We’re still here today, 21 years on, and I don’t imagine I’ll ever do anything else,” Wilcox told Retro Gamer in 2005. In 2014 Elite sought £60,000 on Kickstarter for the Recreated ZX Spectrum, a Bluetooth keyboard in the shape of a Spectrum 48K, for playing its Spectrum games on phones and tablets. Elite Systems Limited is still an active company.

Sources

Retro Gamer issue 13, 2005, Martyn Carroll, Elite Systems feature and interview with Steve Wilcox: the shop, Bowies; Richard and the Atari 400; Blue Thunder and W H Smith; the four teenage programmers; The Fall Guy, Airwolf and the £3,000 licence, Ocean’s rival bid, sales over 100,000; Frank Bruno and Frank Warren’s gym; Electrocoin, Tsujimoto and the Commando bid, “didn’t even flinch”; the August 1985 deal and 200,000 sales; Alligata and the court order; the Tokyo show; Paperboy’s 400,000 sales; turnover figures; agents and 720°; the original games of 1987–89; the Famicom, Dragon’s Lair and the 1990 CES; Striker; the Sony price cut and the £2 million loss; Test Drive: Off-Road; the mobile re-releases; Burntwood; “21 years on”.
Commodore Computing International, vol. 5 no. 10, June 1987, pp. 10–11 and 42, “Gamesworld: The Wilcoxes”: Brian and Steve Wilcox as owners; the offices and cars; Steve’s age, degree and shop; Richard and Blue Thunder; Kokotoni Wilf at number four; The Fall Guy; Airwolf in three weeks and over 200,000 sales; simultaneous multi-format releases; “quality control”; the £50,000 project thrown away; twelve releases planned for 1987.
CRASH issue 9, October 1984, news (“Elite Systems Ltd., formed from Richard Wilcox Software”; Steve Wilcox as sales and marketing manager) and p. 108, Kokotoni Wilf review (£5.95, 63 locations, 84%).
Big K issue 7, October 1984: “Newly-named Elite Systems Ltd. (formerly Richard Wilcox Software)”.
CRASH issue 48, January 1988, index of reviews: scores for Airwolf (issue 13), Frank Bruno’s Boxing (19), Commando (24), Bombjack (27), Ghosts ’n Goblins (30), Paperboy and Scooby Doo (33). CRASH issue 36, January 1987: Space Harrier review (77%).
CRASH issue 30, July 1986: Ghosts ’n Goblins review, “a genuine first rate copy of the arcade game”.
CRASH issue 50, March 1988, p. 27: Best of Elite advertisement with its licence lines (Tecmo, Capcom, Atari Games, Universal City Studios).
ACE issue 4, January 1988: Frank Bruno’s Boxing “effectively a version of the arcade scrapping game, Punch Out”.
CRASH Annual 2026, pp. 110–114, interview with Paul Holmes: Richard and Steve Wilcox at Elite; Frank Bruno’s Boxing and Super Punch-Out!!; the move to contractors; Bomb Jack’s 50Hz engine; Scooby Doo.
Your Computer, January 1986: Commando “developed with the aid of Capcom”.
Computer and Video Games issue 53, March 1986, p. 14: Commando “the number one game at Christmas”.
ZZAP!64 issue 8, December 1985, news: Elite’s objection to Alligata’s Who Dares Wins; Who Dares Wins II released instead.
Computer and Video Games’ Golden Joystick Awards for 1986, as set out in the Golden Joystick Awards entry.
Amtix issue 18, April 1987, p. 42, readers’ awards for 1986: Best Software House (Elite, ahead of Gremlin Graphics and Gargoyle Games), Best Sound FX (Ikari Warriors), Best Music (Commando joint third).
Atari ST User, February and March 1987: Elite’s advertisement for programmers.
K issue 2, January 1989, p. 21: Elite’s abandoned “cinematic” Scooby Doo of 1986–87 under Richard Wilcox.
Amtix issue 3, January 1986: Elite’s holographic sticker advertisement. CRASH issue 21, October 1985: holograms “a comparatively rare commodity”.
The Games Machine issue 24, November 1989: Thrilltime advertisement.
ACE issue 16, January 1989: compilations round-up, Frank Bruno’s Big Box and Fists and Throttles, “chief compilation station”.
ACE issue 8, May 1988: “Elite go budget”, Pete Kury, ST Buggy Boy and Space Harrier.
Amstrad Action issue 34, July 1988, “Elite’s encore”, as set out in the Budget games entry.
ACE issue 27, December 1989: Dogs of War review.
ACE issue 29, February 1990: Elite advertisement, Buggy Boy “original game developed by Tatsumi. Licenced from Data East USA Inc.”
8000 Plus issue 1, October 1986: Steve Wilcox on the Amstrad PCW, “we’ve really got to suck it and see”.
N-Force vol. 2 no. 2, August 1993, and Nintendo Magazine System issue 17, February 1994: Elite’s Super NES and Game Boy advertisements from Anchor House.
Edge issue 16, January 1995, and 3DO Magazine issue 1, August 1995: Virtuoso advertisement, “release date 9th December 1994”, “© 1994, Motivetime Ltd. Used under licence by Elite Systems Ltd”. 3DO Magazine issue 6, October 1995: Virtuoso one star.
Edge issue 33, June 1996: Elite’s recruiting coach.
ZXShed issue 1, 2005: Elite Systems mobile games advertisement, Paperboy under licence from Midway Games West.
Simon Sharwood, “Sinclair’s ZX Spectrum to LIVE AGAIN!”, The Register, 29 January 2014 (web, secondary): the Recreated ZX Spectrum and its £60,000 Kickstarter target. https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/29/sinclairs_zx_spectrum_to_live_again/
Companies House, Elite Systems Limited, company 01840901 (web, secondary): incorporated 14 August 1984; active. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01840901