A Tiger handheld was easy to recognise: a flat plastic case, a printed background, the name of a film or arcade hit on the box, and a liquid-crystal screen on which the characters jumped between fixed positions. Tiger Electronics, a toy company from the suburbs of Chicago, made them for years, sold cheaply in toy shops rather than games shops. It also published Atari 2600 cartridges in the early 1980s, built a handheld console with a touch screen seven years before the Nintendo DS, and sold Furby, the toy craze of Christmas 1998, shortly after Hasbro bought it.
Fast facts
- Founded: by Randy Rissman and Roger Shiffman; Hasbro gave the year as 1979.
- Based: Mundelein, Illinois, in 1984; Vernon Hills, Illinois, by 1998.
- Tigervision: Atari 2600 and TI-99/4A cartridges in the early 1980s, including Miner 2049er.
- Handhelds: licensed LCD games; the R-Zone; the Game.com (1997).
- Acquired: by Hasbro, completed 1 April 1998, for about $335 million.
- Afterwards: Hasbro kept the Tiger name for its electronic toys and LCD games.
Tigervision
In the video game boom of the early 1980s, Tiger Electronic Toys of Mundelein, Illinois, published cartridges under the name Tigervision. Most were conversions of little-known arcade games, such as Polaris, River Patrol and Espial, plus a few clones, such as King Kong, a Donkey Kong imitation, and Threshold. Its hit was the platform game Miner 2049er, which Tigervision published for the Atari 2600 and, at $39.95 on cartridge, for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Home Computer Magazine reviewed the TI version in 1984 and praised its eight levels, their “unparalleled graphics” and the preview of every level at the start. The 2600 business did not last long; collectors later prized Tigervision cartridges for their glossy labels and box art, and River Patrol sold so briefly that it became one of the rarest 2600 games.
Licensed LCD games
Tiger’s main business was the handheld LCD game. Like Nintendo’s Game & Watch, each unit played a single game on a screen of fixed segments, but Tiger’s selling point was the licence on the box. Arcade games such as Sega’s Altered Beast, Golden Axe and Shinobi, console games such as Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, and films such as Batman and RoboCop all became Tiger LCD games, usually much simplified. The Digital Press collectors’ guide described Tiger after its 2600 days as continuing “to pump out handheld games (usually based on major licenses)”. Its puzzle games sold too: in 1998 Hasbro listed Lights Out and Brain Warp among Tiger’s top sellers, alongside Giga Pets and Laser Tag.
R-Zone and Game.com
Tiger’s first attempt at a system with interchangeable games was the R-Zone of the mid-1990s, which Retro Gamer compared to Nintendo’s Virtual Boy: it projected LCD images onto a mirror in front of the player, and its cartridges carried licences such as Batman Forever and Apollo 13. Its second was far more ambitious. Edge reported in July 1997 that Tiger, “known mostly for its line of LCD games”, had released the Game.com in the United States at $70. It had a larger screen than the Game Boy, two cartridge slots, a touch screen with a stylus, and built-in calendar, phone book, calculator and solitaire programs. An internet cartridge, $19.95 in the US, let owners with a separate modem and account send and receive email and use text-only web pages.
Everything ran on one Sharp SM8502 chip, which Edge described as Z80-based, and the 192-by-160-pixel screen showed five shades of grey to the Game Boy’s four. Tiger developed every game itself or with contracted programmers, licensing names it could sell: Batman & Robin, Duke Nukem 3D, Sonic Jam, Resident Evil 2, Fighters Megamix and Monopoly. When Edge tried early versions in September 1997, it found that a slow screen update blurred moving sprites, and judged the machine “unlikely, at this stage, to give Nintendo many sleepless nights”. That was the problem the system never solved. Retro Gamer later counted only about 20 games released. In June 1998 Tiger told fans online that retailers had treated the Game.com as a toy rather than a games system, leaving cartridges in warehouses instead of on shelves beside the hardware. Tiger announced a smaller Game.com Pocket Pro with a sharper, faster screen at E3 in 1998, but the Game Boy Color and Pokémon arrived the same year.
Hasbro and Furby
On 9 February 1998 Hasbro announced that it would buy Tiger’s operating assets for about $335 million. The deal was completed on 1 April 1998, and Hasbro’s own accounts put the total cost at about $395 million once inventory and tooling were included. Tiger’s next hit came months later: Furby, a talking furry toy, was on sale in Britain for Christmas 1998 at £30, and Edge advised readers to “place that order now”. Tiger, now a Hasbro unit, eventually stopped making Game.com games, and went on using licences, among them Atari’s, for LCD and keychain games.
Sources
- Hasbro, Inc., Form 8-K, February 1998, with the press release of 9 February 1998 (US Securities and Exchange Commission; web, public record): founding in 1979 by Randy Rissman and Roger Shiffman; Vernon Hills, Illinois; the $335 million price; Tiger’s top sellers. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/46080/0000046080-98-000003.txt
- Hasbro, Inc., Form 10-Q, 1998 (US Securities and Exchange Commission; web, public record): completion on 1 April 1998 and the estimated total cost. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000046080/000004608098000011/0000046080-98-000011.txt
- Home Computer Magazine vol. 4 no. 1, 1984, p. 3 (Tiger Electronic Toys advertisement, Mundelein), and vol. 4 no. 2, 1984, pp. 57 and 109: review of Miner 2049er for the TI-99/4A ($39.95, cartridge, distributed by Tigervision).
- Electronic Games 1983 Software Encyclopedia and 1984 Software Encyclopedia: Tigervision’s Atari VCS titles.
- Digital Press Collector’s Guide (2003), “Tigervision” profile: Tiger as an LCD maker before and after its 2600 games; the obscure coin-op conversions and clones; the rarity of River Patrol; Tiger “wholly owned by Hasbro” and its Atari-licensed LCD games.
- Edge issue 47, July 1997, p. 10: the Game.com’s US release, $70 price, touch screen, built-in programs and internet cartridge. Issue 49, September 1997, p. 13: the UK launch and Edge’s verdict.
- Retro Gamer, Videogames Hardware Handbook volume 2 (2010), pp. 64–69: “Retroinspection: Tiger Game.com” (Sharp SM8502, shades of grey, in-house development, Tiger’s June 1998 newsgroup letter, the Pocket Pro, about 20 games, the R-Zone as Tiger’s earlier handheld, Hasbro and Furby).
- Edge issue 66, Christmas 1998, p. 96: Tiger Electronics’ Furby, £30.
- Sega Retro, Tiger Electronics LCD game pages (consulted October 2026; web, secondary): the Sega arcade licences, Batman and Castlevania II. https://segaretro.org/Tiger_Electronics
- Fusion annual (2026), p. 41: RoboCop among Tiger’s licensed LCD games.