Tectoy | Code Like It's 198x

In September 1997 the Brazilian magazine SuperGamePower told its readers to get their old Master System out of the cupboard. Sega’s 8-bit console had been finished in Japan and America for years, but in Brazil a company called Tectoy had just squeezed Street Fighter II onto it, with eight fighters, big characters and digitised voices, “ingredients never before seen in a Master System game”. Tectoy made the console in Brazil, wrote and rebuilt games for it in Brazil, and kept it on sale long after Sega had given up on it. By 2016 it had sold more than 8 million Master Systems in Brazil, more than the nearly seven million Sega sold across the whole of Europe.

Fast facts

Founded: September 1987, in São Paulo, by Daniel Dazcal with the brothers Leo and Abe Kryss.
Factory: in the Manaus free-trade zone, in the Amazon.
Sega products: the Zillion laser-tag gun (1988), the Master System (1989), Mega Drive (1990), Game Gear (1991) and Saturn (1995).
Brazilian games: Mônica no Castelo do Dragão (1991), Férias Frustradas do Pica-Pau (1996) and a Master System Street Fighter II (1997), among others.
Online: Mega Net for the Mega Drive, from the end of 1995.
Master System sales in Brazil: more than 8 million by 2016.

Toys with electronics

Tectoy began with toys, not consoles. Stefano Arnhold, who joined as marketing director in December 1987 and later ran the company, told Retro Gamer that it was founded in September 1987 by Daniel Dazcal, his former boss at Sharp in Brazil, and by Leo and Abe Kryss, whose company Evadin made televisions under the Mitsubishi brand. Their plan was “intelligent toys” made for the Brazilian market. Like most Brazilian consumer electronics, they were built in the free-trade zone at Manaus, where manufacturers paid lower taxes.

Making things in Brazil mattered. Under the reserva de mercado, the market reserve, imports of computer goods needed government approval until October 1992, and the country’s computers and consoles were Brazilian-made, most of them copies of foreign designs. “Manufacturing in Brazil was a key factor at that time,” Arnhold said.

Tectoy’s first Sega licence was a toy. In April 1988 it launched Zillion, Sega’s laser-tag gun based on the Japanese cartoon of the same name, made entirely in Brazil. Arnhold said that Tectoy sold more of them than Sega did in Japan, and got the cartoon shown on Brazil’s biggest television channel. The same year brought the Pense Bem, an educational computer toy. In Arnhold’s account, the Zillion success is what persuaded Sega to let Tectoy sell its console.

The Master System arrives

In August 1989 the computer magazine CPU reported that “Tec Toy, empresa de São Paulo” was launching the Master System, with a light gun and liquid-crystal glasses for 3-D games, and cartridges far bigger than the old Ataris could take. Arnhold dates the launch to September 1989. It sold well at once: in the first year, according to SEGA Master System: a visual compendium, Sega hardware and software brought in Cz$40 million of Tectoy’s Cz$66 million revenue.

Tectoy did not have the market to itself. In Arnhold’s telling, the first 8-bit console made in Brazil was a Nintendo-compatible machine, the Dynavision 2, in July 1989, and about a dozen more followed, among them Gradiente’s Phantom System, all made without Nintendo’s permission and without licence fees. Nintendo itself only arrived years later, through Playtronic. Tectoy fought back with television. It ran a daily programme, Master Dicas, with a hint for a different game every day, a telephone hint line and a club for owners, the Master Club, later the Sega Club, which Arnhold said reached a million members. He claimed about 80 per cent of the 8-bit market for Tectoy.

The Mega Drive followed in 1990 and the Game Gear in 1991. By Arnhold’s figures Tectoy’s turnover reached US$100 million in 1991, it was Brazil’s biggest toy maker by 1992, and it had started operations in Argentina and Uruguay, with Sega’s backing to co-ordinate its business across the Mercosur countries. It went on to the São Paulo stock exchange in 1993. In May 1994 Daniel Dazcal died, aged 42, and Arnhold became chief executive. The Saturn arrived in 1995, at R$899.99.

Mônica and the Brazilian games

Tectoy’s master licence let it sell any game Sega owned, and it began to change them for Brazilian players. After a Portuguese translation of Phantasy Star, its first rebuilt game was Mônica no Castelo do Dragão (1991), starring Mônica from Mauricio de Sousa’s comic Turma da Mônica (Monica’s Gang). Arnhold explained that Tectoy took Sega’s Wonder Boy in Monster Land and put Mônica in the hero’s place. Her creator would not let her carry a sword, so she fought with her toy rabbit, Sansão, which she was used to hitting people with in the comics anyway. Early in 1992 Tectoy’s advertisements in SuperGame and VideoGame sent her after the villain Capitão Feio and his fire-breathing dragon.

More followed. Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap became Turma da Mônica em: O Resgate, Psycho Fox became Sapo Xulé, a frog, and Teddy Boy became Geraldinho. In 1997 SuperGamePower visited the team, three artists and four programmers, and described four kinds of work: translation, conversion, adaptation (swapping in new characters) and development from scratch. The first game Tectoy developed from start to finish was Férias Frustradas do Pica-Pau (1996), with the Brazilian name of Woody Woodpecker. The magazine also reported that Brazil was by then the only country still making the Master System and developing its games, and that Tectoy exported both to Portugal and Greece.

When Sega stopped making new Master System games, Tectoy converted Game Gear ones, which was harder than it sounds: “The Game Gear… had a palette of 4,096 colours, while the Master System had only 64,” Arnhold said. Then it tried Street Fighter II. Its programmers took the graphics from the Mega Drive version, doubled the cartridge memory, enlarged the characters and added digitised voices; five fighters could be chosen, with Bison, Sagat and Balrog as the bosses. Arnhold recalled showing it to a visiting Capcom director with a Mega Drive controller and the Master System hidden out of sight: the director thought it looked simple for a 16-bit game, until he saw what it was running on. The critics were kinder to the effort than the result. Retro Gamer later called it “the only official 8-bit console version” and admired its “sheer tenacity”, but found dodgy collision detection and only about three animation frames for each fighter.

Mega Net

Tectoy also put the Mega Drive online. Mega Net, launched at the end of 1995, plugged into the cartridge slot and a telephone line, and gave players e-mail, chat, Tectoy news and an electronic magazine made with the publisher Abril Jovem. It cost R$79.99, with two months’ subscription included, then R$5 for 30 calls or R$9 for unlimited access. Mega Net 2 followed in October 1996 and let players take each other on at FIFA Soccer 95, Mortal Kombat II and 3, NBA Jam and Super Street Fighter II, and only the second player to connect paid for the call; the online multiplayer entry has the details.

Crisis, and a console that would not retire

The late 1990s were hard. In December 1997 Tectoy applied to the courts for protection from its creditors, a concordata preventiva. SuperGamePower reported that it had expected R$30 million of sales at the end of the year and made only a third of that, and that owners of Sega consoles would still get repairs, games and consoles as normal.

Tectoy survived by selling the machines it knew. It made its own versions of the Master System for Brazil, among them the battery-powered Super Compact, which sent its picture to the television by radio, and a pink model for girls. When Sega stopped making the parts, Arnhold said, “we had to re-invent the product hardware several times”. In 2006 Retro Gamer found Tectoy selling a Master System 3 with 120 games built in and a cartridge slot as well. In 2009 it tried a new console, the Zeebo, made with the American chip company Qualcomm for cheaper markets, which was sold only in Brazil and Mexico and did not meet its sales targets.

The Master System outlasted it. The visual compendium reported more than 8 million sold in Brazil by 2016, against the nearly seven million Sega sold across Europe. “If you consider that we launched Master System in Brazil in 1989 and we are still producing it now after nearly 29 years,” Arnhold told the book’s authors, “it is quite difficult to think of any other electronic product that has survived for so long.” The model then on sale had more than 130 games built in. Tectoy was still selling the Master System Evolution, a plug-and-play version with games built in, in 2026.

Sources

CPU (Brazil) issue 11, August 1989: Tec Toy launches the Master System, with light gun, 3-D glasses and larger cartridges.
SuperGame (Brazil) issue 7, February 1992, and VideoGame (Brazil) issue 10, 1992: Tectoy advertisement for Mônica no Castelo do Dragão.
SuperGamePower (Brazil) issue 19, October 1995: console price guide (Saturn R$899.99).
SuperGamePower (Brazil) issue 22, January 1996, p. 67: Mega Net (how it connects, services, R$79.99, subscription charges, the Abril Jovem magazine). Issue 31, October 1996, p. 13: Mega Net 2 (the games; only the second player pays).
SuperGamePower (Brazil) issue 42, September 1997, p. 12 (“Circuito Aberto”: Tectoy’s games team, its four kinds of work, Mônica no Castelo do Dragão and Phantasy Star in 1991, Férias Frustradas do Pica-Pau in 1996, exports to Portugal and Greece, Street Fighter II’s larger cartridge, bigger characters and voices) and p. 38 (Street Fighter II review: the fighters, “Capcom/Tectoy”).
SuperGamePower (Brazil) issue 46, January 1998: Tectoy’s concordata preventiva in December 1997 and its year-end sales.
Retro Gamer issue 30, 2006, pp. 50–53: John Szczepaniak, company profile of Tec Toy, with interview with Stefano Arnhold (founding in September 1987 by Daniel Dazcal and Leo and Abe Kryss of Evadin; Arnhold joining in December 1987; “intelligent toys”; Manaus; Zillion in April 1988 and the Pense Bem; the Master System in September 1989 and the Mega Drive in 1990; the Game Gear and US$100 million turnover in 1991; largest toy maker by 1992; Argentina and Uruguay; the stock exchange in 1993; the Super Compact and pink model; the localised games; the Street Fighter II review; the Master System 3).
Steve Jarratt and Damien McFerran, SEGA Master System: a visual compendium (Bitmap Books, 2019), p. 10 (first-year revenue; more than 8 million sold in Brazil by 2016; European sales) and pp. 205–207, “The Master System in Brazil”, with interview with Stefano Arnhold (Dazcal and the founding; Arnhold as marketing director and chief executive from 1994; Zillion; “a key factor”; the September 1989 launch; the Dynavision 2, the Phantom and the clones; 80 per cent of the 8-bit market; Master Dicas and the Master Club; the master licence; Mônica and Sansão and the other rebuilt games; the Game Gear conversions and the 4,096 and 64 colours; the Capcom story; re-inventing the hardware; “nearly 29 years” and the 130-game model).
Sega Retro, “Daniel Efraim Dazcal” (web, secondary): his death on 26 May 1994, aged 42. https://segaretro.org/Daniel_Efraim_Dazcal
Sega Retro, “Zeebo” (web, secondary): the Zeebo, a joint venture with Qualcomm released in 2009, sold only in Brazil and Mexico, and its sales. https://segaretro.org/Zeebo
Benjamin Zeman, “The Sega Master System is still being made and sold in Brazil 37 years later”, XDA Developers, 5 May 2026 (web, secondary): the Master System Evolution still on sale. https://www.xda-developers.com/the-sega-master-system-is-still-being-made-and-sold-in-brazil-37-years-later/
The market reserve’s laws (Lei nº 7.232 of 1984 and Lei nº 8.248 of 1991) are cited in the Brazil’s Market Reserve entry.