Tiger Electronics
From Sega Retro
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| Tiger Electronics | ||
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| Founded: 1978 | ||
| Merged into: Hasbro (1998) | ||
Headquarters:
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Tiger Electronics is a USA-based toys manufacturer, best known for the Furby toys, Giga Pets and the Game.com handheld console.
Randy Rissman and Roger Shiffman founded the company in 1978. It started with low-tech items like phonographs, but then began developing handheld electronic games and teaching toys. An early hit was the voice digitizer Talkboy (seen in the movie Home Alone), followed by the Brain Warp. It also licensed the defunct "Lazer Tag" brand from its inventors, the Worlds of Wonder company.
Tiger Electronics has been part of the Hasbro toy company since 1998. Hasbro, previously shy of high-tech toys, was very interested in the development of the cuddly "Furby". With Hasbro's support, Tiger was able to rush through the development process and get the Furby on the shelves for the 1998 holiday season, during which it was a runaway hit—the "it" toy of the 1998 and 1999 seasons.
Tiger also created the Giga Pets line of handheld electronic "pets" to compete with the popular Japanese Tamagotchis. Tiger is also known for creating and distributing a large lineup of handheld LCD games spanning from generic themed games, to games featuring characters from well known franchises such as MC Hammer, Beverly Hills 90210, or Sonic the Hedgehog.
Distributors
- Grandstand (late 1980s), Tiger Electronics Ltd. (UK)
- Yeno (late 1980s), Tiger Electronics S.A.R.L (France)
- Tiger Electronics G.M.B.H (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
- Nobel Toys (early - mid 1990s), Eurostores S.A (Greece)
- Gig (Italy)
- Brio (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark)
- ? (Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg)
- Tec Toy (Brazil)
Softography
LCD
- After Burner (1988)
- Electronic Hang-On (1989)
- Electronic Thunder Blade (1989)
- OutRun (1989)
- Electronic Altered Beast (1990)
- Electronic Space Harrier II (1990)
- Electronic Golden Axe (1990)
- Electronic Shinobi (1990)
- Sonic the Hedgehog LCD Wrist Game (1991)
- Sonic the Hedgehog (1992)
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1993)
- Streets of Rage (1993)
- Baseball (1994)
- Ecco the Dolphin (1994)
- Eternal Champions: Special Moves Edition (1994)
- Football (1994)
- Sonic Spinball (1994)
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994)
- Virtua Fighter (1995)
- Indy 500 (1996)
- Virtua Cop (1996)
- Bug! (1997)
- NiGHTS into Dreams (1997)
- Panzer Dragoon (1997)
- Sonic 3D Blast (1997)
- Sonic R (1998)
- Super Monaco GP (1998)
- Daytona USA (199x)
- OutRun F-1 (19xx)
- SDI (19xx)
- Submarine Wars (19xx)
- Sonic Adventure (2000)
- Sonic Underground (2000)