British video game publisher, 1984–1996
U.S. Gold Limited |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|
| Industry | Video games |
|---|
| Founded | 1984; 40 years ago (1984) |
|---|
| Founder | Anne and Geoff Brown[1] |
|---|
| Defunct | April 1996; 28 years ago (1996-04) |
|---|
| Fate | Closed |
|---|
| Headquarters | , England |
|---|
| Parent | |
|---|
U.S. Gold Limited was a British video game publisher based in Witton, Birmingham, England. The company was founded in 1984 by Anne and Geoff Brown in parallel to their distributor firm, CentreSoft, both of which became part of Woodward Brown Holdings (later renamed CentreGold). The company primarily aimed at publishing games imported from the United States with a lower price tag in Europe and especially the United Kingdom.
History
By 1985, U.S. Gold projected a turnover of US$6 million for their first fiscal year, and expected to release further 150 games in the year to come.[2] In 1988, U.S. Gold received the Golden Joystick Award for "Software House of the Year".[3] The company also operated the budget range label Kixx.[4]
In 1988, the company struck a deal with Japanese company Capcom to port their arcade video games for home computers in Europe. They paid £2 million or $3,557,642 (equivalent to $9,200,000 in 2023) for a ten-game deal with Capcom. The first four games they announced as part of the deal were ports of the 1987 arcade games Street Fighter, Tiger Road, 1943: The Battle of Midway and Black Tiger for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST and Amiga platforms.[5] Their first five Capcom releases sold over 250,000 copies in the UK by 1989, with their best-selling Capcom release up until then being Bionic Commando with over 70,000 UK sales. Their next Capcom release was Forgotten Worlds in 1989.[6]
In April 1996, Eidos Interactive acquired the entire CentreGold umbrella (including U.S. Gold) for £17.6 million,[7][8] as a result of which U.S. Gold and CentreSoft ceased all operations.
