Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo

#1

Post by rshrsh » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 1:50 PM UTC

Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo
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Re: Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo

#2

Post by luso_brazilian » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 2:29 PM UTC

There are one other reason for its success in Brazil: taking full advantage of local culture when porting some games.

For instance, Turma da Monica em O Resgate [1], built up over Wonder Boy III [2] and not only localized but also retooled to use the belove Monica's Gang characters.

TecToy [3] really knew their local market modifying "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", all of them very known and well beloved characters of Brazilian youth at the time.

[1] http://www.emuparadise.me/Sega_Master_System_ROMs/Turma_da_M...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Boy_III:_The_Dragon%27s...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tectoy

Re: Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo

#3

Post by bediger4000 » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 2:39 PM UTC

I think you'll also find that Pepsi won the Cola War in Brazil. Must be an interesting place, where so many counterfactuals came true.

Re: Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo

#4

Post by karaujo » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 2:48 PM UTC

Stopped reading here: "its Master System (later called Genesis in America)".

The Genesis was the Mega Drive, not the Master System.

At the time Nintendo was not officially selling in Brazil, but there were several NES clones selling. Sega was popular, but not dominating the market entirely.

Re: Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo

#5

Post by imjk » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

I'm still waiting for TurboGrafx-16 to take off somewhere so that I can buy new games for it.

Re: Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo

#6

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

bediger4000 wrote: post #3

I think you'll also find that Pepsi won the Cola War in Brazil. Must be an interesting place, where so many counterfactuals came true.

[deleted]

Re: Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo

#7

Post by alganet » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 2:55 PM UTC

I'm brazillian!

There was some Nintendo market over here. Another brazillian company named CCE built the NES and sold here. It was my first video game (I was about 9).

I've had both Sega/TecToy MasterSystem III and Mega Drive (the Genesis). Super Nintendos were popular as well at the time, but as the article suggests most of cartridges were pirated ones.

Playstation 1 was another crazy thing in Brazil. I have never seen an original PS1 CD. I've bought the console and the store gave me 15 pirated CDs of my choice by the time. For R$10,00 (roughly $20,00 USD by the time) it was possible to buy three Playstation 1 games. It was nearly impossible to find original Playstation games though.

Re: Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo

#8

Post by shortformblog » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 2:56 PM UTC

karaujo wrote: post #4

Stopped reading here: "its Master System (later called Genesis in America)". The Genesis was the Mega Drive, not the Master System. At the time Nintendo was not officially selling in Brazil, but there were several NES clones selling. Sega was popular, but not dominating the market entirely.

Hey there,

Author of the piece. This was an error added during the editing process—if you read later in the piece, the difference is sussed out a bit. The point about NES clones becoming popular in Brazil is also touched upon in the piece.

It's getting fixed now. Sorry about that.

Re: Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo

#9

Post by epidemian » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

I'm pretty sure the Sega Genesis also beat the SNES by a large margin here in Argentina too. At least i grew up with a Genesis and knew a lot of people who had one, while i only knew of one person who owned a SNES[1].

One of the possible reasons for this is that there were cheap pirated Genesis games available[2], which, i think, SNES games were much more expensive, probably not pirated.

[1]: The graphics and fluidity of Donkey Kong Country on that console were mesmerizing for a Genesis player though :D. But for some reason i always preferred the Genesis sounds and music. And, of course, Sonic The Hedgehog!

[2]: I actually didn't know about this till not too long ago. I always thought my Sega games were original! But learning about this explained why "save slots" didn't work on any game (the pirated cartridges didn't have a persistent writable memory).

Re: Brazil Is An Alternate Video Game Universe Where Sega Beat Nintendo

#10

Post by masklinn » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 3:29 PM UTC

epidemian wrote: post #9

I'm pretty sure the Sega Genesis also beat the SNES by a large margin here in Argentina too. At least i grew up with a Genesis and knew a lot of people who had one, while i only knew of one person who owned a SNES[1]. One of the possible reasons for this is that there were cheap pirated Genesis games available[2], which, i think , SNES games were much more expensive, probably not pirated. [1]: The graphics and fluidi…

> the pirated cartridges didn't have a persistent writable memory

Wait so you had to beat every game in a single sitting?