Elite Systems
History
Following their first game, Blue Thunder, an unlicensed film tie-in which was released under the name Richard Wilcox Software, Elite quickly rebranded and soon became one of the most successful producers of licenced titles of the era. Their first budget label, 2.99 Classics, consisted entirely of re-releases of classic titles from other software houses and included previous number 1's Full Throttle, TLL, Chequered Flag and Flight Simulation. However, only three of the titles appeared in the charts and the label disappeared several months after launch amid reports of unpaid royalties. Elite returned to the budget market in 1988 with the Encore range which would prove to be far more successful. Alongside re-releases of Elite's many hits, the range was bolstered by the acquisition of Durell's back catalogue, as well as a number of original releases. Their biggest hit overall was the budget re-release of Paperboy on the Encore label, whose chart performance is beaten only by RoboCop.
Note
The figures for Months in the Top 10 and Months at No. 1 are based on the All Format and Multi Format chart only.
Columns are sortable, sorting by the cover column will sort by chart appearance date.
