Firebird US History
Continued...
A slow but steady seller, Elite eventually hit the #1 spot on the Billboard Magazine software charts in May 1986. It was the first ever UK product to make it to the top of the chart in the US, and was a rewarding moment for what was still a small company.
Later that same year, Firebird finally moved to proper offices befitting of a successful software publisher in Waldwick, New Jersey. They also hired Dan Horn as Vice President Product Development. He dealt with all areas of acquisition of products, market presence, and product analysis for publication for all divisions of Telecomsoft. He also acted as a United States computer industry expert on product development and fine tuned British and European products for the U.S. marketplace. Dan also developed product line strategies and created new product proposals, and was instrumental in the acquisition of Bantam products for the US (e.g. Sherlock Holmes).
Other publisher's UK products were also sold in the US via the Firebird Licensees label, including CDS (Colossus Chess IV), PSS (a number of wargames), and Ocean Software (Frankie Goes to Hollywood).
The packaging for the US releases was initially the same as in the UK except with US barcodes and stickers giving the US office address. Ocassionally there had to be a change in title between a UK release and a US release. For example, The Sentinel became The Sentry (there was already a game called Sentinel in the US), and later on Whirligig became Space Cutter.
Super Silverdisk
Initially called the Firebird Super Silverdisk range, these C64 only releases included two games on each disk.
Titles paired up included The Arc of Yesod and Nodes of Yesod (both Odin titles), Runestone and The Helm, Gerry the Germ and Microcosm, Battle of Britain and Battle for Midway (both PSS titles), Booty and Cylu, Underwurlde and Sabre Wulf (both Ultimate games), Willow Pattern and Chimera and (somewhat bizarrely) Rasputin and Chicken Chase (originally spelt Chickin in the UK release)!