Kinesoft

Kinesoft Development was a video game development company founded by Peter Sills in 1991. Mark Achler joined the company in 1994 to serve as president. Along with Director of Technology, Andrew Glaister, Sills developed the concept which became known as Exodus, a video-game development environment for Windows 95. Andrew Glaister took this concept and developed it.

Exodus caught the attention of IBM, Intel, Sega, and Microsoft. Microsoft then used the basic concepts and their relationship with Kinesoft to develop a new set of technologies called DirectX which now forms the basis of all gaming under Windows. Subsequently, Kinesoft's port of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure was the first commercial game release for Windows 95 and was touted by Bill Gates at that year's COMDEX tradeshow as the launch of the new DirectX technologies for Windows 95. Other Exodus platform games included Windows ports of Earthworm Jim and Gex.

In 1995, Kinesoft entered into an extensive third-party deal with GameBank, a company setup by SoftBank and Microsoft to bring console titles to Windows for the Japanese marketplace by using its unique talents and tool-sets to convert existing Sega Genesis titles to Windows 95. These ports were later expanded to include Nintendo and some early Sony PlayStation titles as well.

In addition to games development, Kinesoft also released WinCD, a software CD player, and the film It's a Wonderful Life on CD-ROM for Windows 3.1.