In October 1995 a Brazilian games magazine listed the month’s new cartridges for each console. For the Mega Drive there was Judge Dredd; for the Super NES, a Star Wars game. For the Master System, a console Sega had launched in Japan ten years earlier, there were two: Rainbow Islands and Sapo Xulé: S.O.S. Lagoa Poluída. In America and Japan the Master System was long finished. In Brazil it was still selling, and consoles descended from it were still on sale twenty years later.
The reason goes back to the 1970s. Under the reserva de mercado, Brazil’s market reserve, a computer could come into the country only with government approval, and approval went to Brazilian manufacturers. Most Brazilians met computers and video games as Brazilian-made machines, nearly all of them copies of foreign designs, although smuggled imports were never hard to find.
Fast facts
- Market reserve: from the late 1970s until 29 October 1992, imports of computer goods needed government approval; see Brazil’s Market Reserve.
- Computers: Brazilian copies of the Apple II, TRS-80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum, and Brazilian-made MSX machines from 1985.
- Consoles: Brazilian Atari-compatible machines and the licensed Polyvox Atari from 1983; Brazilian Nintendo-compatible consoles such as the Dynavision and Phantom System by 1991.
- Sega: Tectoy launched the Master System under licence in 1989, and had sold more than 8 million by 2016.
- Nintendo: official only from 1993, through Playtronic, a joint venture of Gradiente and the toy maker Estrela.
Computers under the reserve
The market reserve entry tells the policy’s story. For people who wanted to program or play, its effect was simple: the computer in the shop was Brazilian. Almost all were copies of foreign designs: some faithful, some improved, a few original. Micro Sistemas, Brazil’s first microcomputer magazine, recorded that the cheap Sinclair-compatible machines became the best-selling computers in the country, with Microdigital leading from the start.
The range of copies was wide. The Brazilian edition of the British part-work INPUT, published in 1986, printed a table of the machines its programs would run on, giving each one’s maker and the foreign family it followed. Counting only the Brazilian models:
| Family | Brazilian models in the table |
|---|---|
| Apple II+ and IIe | about 30, among them the Unitron AP II, Microdigital TK-3000 IIe, Spectrum Microengenho I and II, Milmar Apple Master and Victor do Brasil Elppa II Plus |
| TRS-80 and TRS-Color | 16, among them the DISMAC D-8000, Prológica CP-300, CP-400 and CP-500, Digitus DGT-100 and Sysdata IV |
| Sinclair ZX81 | 8: Microdigital TK-82C, TK-83 and TK-85, Prológica CP-200, Ritas Ringo R-470, Engebras AS-1000, Filcres NEZ-8000 and Apply 300 |
| MSX | 2: Gradiente Expert and Sharp Hotbit HB-8000 |
| Sinclair ZX Spectrum | 1: Microdigital TK-90X |
A count of models is not a count of sales, but it shows how many companies were building computers, and how much of what they built followed American designs. The ZX81, not the Spectrum, was the deeper Sinclair line.
INPUT was rewritten for this market, not just translated. Its introduction to machine code explained that the Apple II came with a monitor for typing in machine code, but that a computer with an assembler built into its ROM was rarer: “No Brasil, o TK-2000, da Microdigital, é um exemplo” (in Brazil, Microdigital’s TK-2000 is one). For the other families, “linha TRS-80, TRS-Color, MSX, Sinclair Spectrum e ZX-81”, assemblers were sold on tape or disk. The type-in listings entry describes the British original.
MSX arrived in 1985, when the electronics companies Gradiente and Sharp showed the Expert and the Hotbit at São Paulo’s computer fair. The market reserve and MSX entries tell that part of the story.
Consoles, and copies of consoles
Video games followed the same pattern. In October 1983 Micro Sistemas explained to its readers that a video game was “um microcomputador não programável” (a computer its owner could not program) that ran programs from cartridges, and set out the choice. Imported Ataris and Intellivisions could be found in the video clubs, thanks to gaps in the law and in customs checks. Otherwise the buyer chose from four Brazilian consoles: the Dactari from Milmar, the Dynavision from Dynacom, the Top Game from Bit Eletrônica and Philips’s Odyssey. All but the Odyssey were similar to Atari’s machine. DISMAC was about to launch its VJ-9000, and Gradiente, through its Polyvox brand, had won the right to sell the Atari itself in Brazil. The numbers show how fast the market was growing: Milmar told the magazine it was making 1,500 Dactaris and 5,000 cartridges a month, Polyvox expected to sell 130,000 Ataris by February 1984, and DISMAC hoped for 150,000 VJ-9000s by the end of 1983. A console cost between Cr$150,000 and Cr$200,000, and a cartridge between Cr$12,000 and Cr$35,000.
The next generation arrived as Brazilian copies too. VideoGame’s 1991 buyer’s guide listed consoles in the “padrão Nintendo” (Nintendo standard): among them Dynacom’s Dynavision, Gradiente’s Phantom System, DISMAC’s Bit System and Milmar’s Hi Top Game, some taking the 72-pin American cartridges and some the 60-pin Japanese ones, with adaptors to play either. Atari-standard consoles were still on sale beside them, from Polyvox and CCE, with about 200 cartridges to choose from. The guide also warned readers about machines bought in Paraguay or Miami: a console made for American or Japanese NTSC televisions would show games in black and white on Brazil’s PAL-M sets. Multi-game cartridges from Paraguay held up to 32 games for the American standard or 76 for the Japanese one. Milmar answered in 1991 by launching cartridges licensed from the American company American Video, promising them at about 30 per cent below the going price. Unlicensed Famicom copies kept coming over the Paraguayan border into the mid-1990s; the Famiclones entry has the Micro Genius advertisements from Ciudad del Este.
Tectoy and the Master System
Sega took a different route. In August 1989 the 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. Tectoy made the console under licence, and in its first year, according to the book SEGA Master System: a visual compendium, Sega hardware and software brought in Cz$40 million of Tectoy’s Cz$66 million revenue.
Tectoy also localised Sega’s games. Early in 1992 its advertisements in SuperGame and VideoGame announced Mônica no Castelo do Dragão for the Master System, starring Mônica, heroine of the Brazilian comic Turma da Mônica (Monica’s Gang). In the advert she sets out with her rabbit, Sansão, to stop the villain Capitão Feio polluting the world with his fire-breathing dragon. Tectoy went on to bring the Mega Drive and, in 1995, the Saturn, at R$899.99. It even put the Mega Drive online, with Mega Net at the end of 1995; the online multiplayer entry has the details.
The Master System outlived its successors. SuperGamePower’s October 1995 release list still had new Master System games, and by the compendium’s count Tectoy had sold more than 8 million Master System consoles in Brazil by 2016, more than the nearly seven million Sega sold across Europe over the console’s life. As late as 2015, according to Wikipedia, Tectoy was still selling plug-and-play consoles derived from the Master System with games built in.
Nintendo arrives
Nintendo came officially only after the reserve had ended. In May 1993 GamePower reported that Nintendo had made a deal “inédito” (unprecedented) with a third party to make and sell its consoles in Brazil: Playtronic, a joint venture between Gradiente and the toy maker Estrela, which set up in the Manaus free-trade zone to build the NES and Super NES. VideoGame called Playtronic “a Nintendo brasileira”. The long life applied to Nintendo’s 8-bit console too: in October 1995, SuperGamePower noted, the NES was no longer made in the United States, but Playtronic was still selling it in Brazil for R$129.
Gradiente’s path runs through the whole story: the licensed Polyvox Atari in 1983, an MSX computer, the Expert, in 1985, a Nintendo-compatible console, the Phantom System, by 1991, and official Nintendo hardware once the market opened.
Sources
- Micro Sistemas, special edition “Informática 85”, September 1985: the history of the micro industry (Sinclair-compatibles as the best sellers, Microdigital’s lead; MSX from Gradiente and Sharp at the 1985 fair) and of the computer congresses (CAPRE and the 1977 minicomputer competition).
- Micro Sistemas issue 25, October 1983, games feature, “Os videogames”: imported and Brazilian consoles, the Gradiente/Polyvox Atari, production and sales figures, prices.
- Micro Sistemas issue 27, December 1983: guide to computer shops, several listing “Atari/Polyvox” among the products they sold.
- INPUT (Brazilian edition), volume 1, issue 1 (Nova Cultural, 1986): the compatibility table; the machine-code introduction (the TK-2000’s built-in assembler; assemblers for the other families).
- CPU (Brazil) issue 11, August 1989: Tec Toy launches the Master System, with light gun and 3-D glasses.
- VideoGame (Brazil) issue 1, special edition, 1991: buyer’s guide to Nintendo-standard consoles (Dynavision, Phantom System, Bit System and others; 72-pin and 60-pin cartridges; PAL-M and NTSC; multi-game cartridges from Paraguay); Atari-standard consoles from Polyvox and CCE and their cartridges; the Mega Drive newly arrived in Brazil.
- VideoGame (Brazil) issue 4, June 1991: Milmar’s licensed American Video cartridges for its Hi Top Game.
- SuperGame (Brazil) issue 7, February 1992, and VideoGame (Brazil) issue 10, 1992: Tectoy advertisement for Mônica no Castelo do Dragão; SuperGame issue 7 also refers to “o Mega da Tec Toy”, Tectoy’s Mega Drive.
- GamePower (Brazil) issue 11, May 1993, p. 22: Nintendo’s agreement with Playtronic (Gradiente and Estrela) and its Manaus factory.
- VideoGame (Brazil) issue 32, November 1993: “Playtronic, a Nintendo brasileira”.
- SuperGamePower (Brazil) issue 19, October 1995: console price guide (Saturn R$899.99; NES R$129, sold by Playtronic after production ended in the United States) and new releases, including Rainbow Islands and Sapo Xulé: S.O.S. Lagoa Poluída for the Master System.
- Steve Jarratt and Damien McFerran, SEGA Master System: a visual compendium (Bitmap Books, 2019): Tectoy’s first-year revenue; more than 8 million Master Systems sold in Brazil by 2016; European sales.
- Wikipedia, “Tectoy” (web, secondary): plug-and-play Master System derivatives still on sale at the end of 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tectoy
- The legal framework of the market reserve (Lei nº 7.232 of 1984 and Lei nº 8.248 of 1991) is cited in the Brazil’s Market Reserve entry.