Tectoy

Tec Toy S.A.

Type	Sociedade Anônima
Traded as	BM&F Bovespa: TOYB4
Industry	Toys, Video games, Electronics
Founded	1987
Headquarters	São Paulo, Brazil
Key people	Fernando Fischer Pereira, (CEO)
Products	Master System, Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Gear, Saturn, Dreamcast, Zeebo
Revenue	US$ 69.0 million (2012)[1]
Net income	- US$ 5.0 million (2012)
Website	www.tectoy.com.br

Tectoy (known as Tec Toy before late 2007) is a Brazilian video game and electronics company. They are best known for producing, publishing and distributing Sega's consoles and video games in Brazil. The company stock is also traded at Bovespa. The company is headquartered in São Paulo.^[2]

History

Tectoy's original logo from 1987 to 2000

Tectoy was founded in 1987 by a group of former Sharp engineers led by Daniel Dazcal, with the purpose of making electronic toys, a niche that other Brazilian toy manufacturers had failed to notice. They quickly struck a deal to become the exclusive representative of Japanese video game giant Sega Enterprises Ltd.. Consequently, their first product was the Zillion infrared toy gun. In the coming years they would release all of Sega's game machines, from the Master System to the Dreamcast. Their success in the gaming field was so notable that toys became a minor part of their business.

With Tectoy, Sega had a huge advantage over rival Nintendo in the Brazilian market; although there were countless Nintendo Entertainment System clones there, Nintendo had no official representatives until 1993. The Master System was a massive success there, and Tectoy even made some game versions not released anywhere else. TecToy would also release the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, which would surpass the SNES in marketshare in Brazil.^[3] the 1990s, Tectoy had 80% of the official Brazilian market.

In the 1990s, Tectoy translated several games to Portuguese, which was rare at the time. Translated games include the first three Phantasy Star games, Shining in the Darkness, and Riven, the last of which also incorporated dubbed voices.^[4]

They also modified some games to replace characters with local licenses; that way, Teddy Boy became Geraldinho of Glauco, certain Wonder Boy titles became Monica's Gang games and Ghost House also starred El Chapulín Colorado ("Chapolim Colorado"), a Mexican character very popular in Brazil.

In addition to this, Tectoy have made unique ports and even developed original games. These include ports of Street Fighter II for the Master System and Duke Nukem 3D for the Mega Drive/Genesis, as well as developing an original Woody Woodpecker game for the Mega Drive and Master System. More recently they released two Mega Drive titles based on Show do Milhão — a TV game show hosted by Silvio Santos in the same vein of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Tectoy's second logo

However, the company faced major financial hardships in the late 1990s. With the liberalization of imports and the overvaluation of the real, local companies were facing a flood of cheap Chinese toys and electronics; and the Sega Saturn was faring poorly against the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 - especially since Nintendo finally had an official representative in Brazil. In late 1997 the company underwent a concordata (similar to a chapter 11), and closed its toy business. It was hoped that Sega's upcoming Dreamcast, to be released in 1999, would perform better than the Saturn. However, it did poorly as well. Also, by that time, Tectoy had to face the opposite problem as before: the dollar skyrocketed, making the Dreamcast very expensive to import.

Around that same time, Tectoy started diversifying, at first with karaoke devices, and later selling DVD players and MP3 players. They also manage the Brazilian servers for Ragnarok Online. Also, their Tectoy Mobile division, founded in 2005, is the Brazilian publisher of cell phone games by companies such as Sega Mobile, In-Fusio and Bandai.

Although Tectoy would discontinue the Saturn and the Dreamcast, they continue to sell revisions of the Master System that come with built-on games. Due to Tectoy's decision to continue producing the Master System, the Master System is considered the longest-lived console in the history of consoles.^[5] As of 2015, the Master System still sells around 150,000 a year, a level comparable to modern consoles such as the PlayStation 4.^[6]

Besides the video games, Tectoy's most successful toy was Pense Bem, a licensed version of the Smart Start toy computer created by VTech (Video Technology Industries).^[7] The device had a number of built-in programs - number guessing, memory skill, music keyboard, and so on. It was expanded by using quiz books about various topics; children entered the answer and the device responded whether it was right or wrong. Some Pense Bem books included famous characters like Monica's Gang, Sonic the Hedgehog, Dinosaurs and Donald Duck. Pense Bem-themed games were included in Tectoy's later incarnations of the Mega Drive and the Master System.

Supported consoles

The main video game consoles released by Tectoy in Brazil are the following:

• Master System (1988, from Sega)
• Mega Drive/Genesis (1989, from Sega)
  • SEGA CD (1993, from Sega)
  • Multi-Mega CDX (1994, from Sega)
  • Mega 32X (1994, from Sega)
• Sega Game Gear (1991, from Sega)
• Sega Saturn (1995, from Sega)
• Dreamcast (1999, from Sega)
• Zeebo (2009)
• Zeebo 2^[8] (cancelled)^[9][10]

Tectoy also develops various Master System and Mega Drive derivatives targeting the low-income market. These consoles generally do not have the cartridge slots, as games are installed directly on its internal memory. One of these consoles is the Mega Drive Portable, a portable Sega Mega Drive with 20 games installed onto its memory.^[11]

References

External links

• Official Tectoy site (Portuguese)
• Tectoy Mobile (Portuguese)
• Tectoy Digital, its game studio (Portuguese)

Electronics industry in Brazil
Companies	Current Bravox CEITEC IGB Eletrônica Itautec Positivo Informática Tectoy Defunct Microdigital Eletronica
Other