History of Sega in Taiwan

History of Sega in Taiwan
Official Sega distributor(s): Aaronix (1985-1988), Wenmao Co.Ltd (1990-1993), Pai Yuing Company Ltd (1993-199x), Pacific T-Zone (1998-2001), AtGames (2005-2015), Sega Taiwan (2015-present)

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Sega has had operations in Taiwan (officially known as the Republic of China) since the early 1970s, when Taiwan was one of the countries where Sega imported its game machines, however its dubious political status means it is often confused with the People's Republic of China, otherwise known simply as China. Both modern China and Taiwan were originally united as the same country until 1949, when the Chinese Revolution saw China's ruling party, the Kuomintang, "pushed off" the mainland. Taiwan has since experienced rapid growth and has transformed into a multi-party democratised nation. In contrast, though mainland China is the fastest growing nation in the world, it is exceptionally difficult to market and produce video games in this region due to tight restrictions imposed by the state.

Aaronix

Due to legal restrictions, Sega could not import its products from Japan so in 1985 they got along with Jiawen Tsai (蔡嘉文) to manufacture its consoles under their brand. They released rebranded SG-1000 II and Sega Mark III (first SG-1000 is rumored and wasn't confirmed for now) as Aaronix (阿羅士) and Fullwis (虎威). The legal restrictions that blocked Sega from importing goods were abolish in 1987. Some sources stated that Aaronix started selling original Japanese Master System after that, but this operations were ended shortly between 1987 and 1988. One of the reasons was high piracy and main competitor was Way-up Corp (佳寶電子業股份有限公司) which sold many SG-1000 clones and pirate softwares.

Arcade machines were distribute by Laxan since 1983.

Wenmao Co.Ltd

Wenmao sticker

In 1990, Wenmao Co.Ltd (文贸有限公司) released NTSC versions of the Sega Mega Drive, and also Game Gear in the next year. In 1991, Sangokushi Retsuden: Ransei no Eiyuutachi and Warrior of Rome were translate into Chinese. Wenmao distributed Mega CD model I and Teradrive too from 1992 and started importing Mega Drive 2 in 1993, before they left the market. All of the accessories and games for Sega systems that were exclusive for Japan were released here as well, which became a common thing in the next years.

Top Mega-Drive magazine about Sega video games was published between 1992-1994.

Sega form Sega Amusements Taiwan (later known as Sega Taiwan) in 1992, which maintain a large share of the arcade market in this region, as well as run a Sega World.

Taiwanese factories, as is the case for many Asian countries, are often responsible for the manufacturing of electronics equipment, including video game consoles, accessories and games designed by Sega. Until August 1992, 85% of Sega's hardware and software for export, were produced in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong. However, cheap manufacturing costs and relaxed copyright laws have led to Taiwan being a hub for unlicensed hardware and software too. The majority of unlicensed video games for third and fourth generation video games sent into local market and out into the world (such as the NES/Famicom and Sega Mega Drive) originate from the country. One of the more recognizable at that time were KW-500 series by King-Wei Electronics, HK-986 by Hao Kang Electronics Industry Co., Ltd., High Quality, Macro Drive or more ambitious like EZcom computer by Realtec. The number of clones and their producers from the 1990s to today is very difficult to determine.

Pai Yuing Company Ltd

Pai Yuing golden sticker

In 1993, Pai Yuing Company Ltd (百韻股份有限公司) took over distribution, releasing Mega Drive 2 and Mega CD 2 same year. In the next year they manage to sell Mega Drive 32X as well. The consoles and games sold by them had special gold (sometimes white) sticker on the box to help customer distinguish clones from original. Taiwan was the first country outside of Japan and the U.S. to receive the Sega Channel around September/October of 1995 and service was handle by Fuzhi International Communication (富智國際傳播), apparently in Chinese.

Computer & Entertainment Inc., Gamtec, Creaton Softech, Chuanpu and Realtec produced unlicensed video games, with certain of them being exported to countries with high level of piracy and after many years, Super Fighter Team localized some of them and released in Western world. Other companies like SKOB or TCT began to work on first unauthorized translations of MD games.

Sega Saturn

Sega Saturn seems to be released here by unknown distributor and was pretty popular but distribution was chaotic. Sega's agent withdrew from the market at some point and console was left with a lot of parallel imports, pirate software and unstable market price.

Sega introduced Pico to Taiwan and Indonesia in late 1997 and expected to achieve total sales of 330,000 units in both countries by 2000.

Windows PC games from Sega released in late 90s, were distribute by Worldwise Enterprise and Media Master International.

Pacific T-Zone

On August 28, 1998, Pacific T-Zone signed an agreement with Sega to distributed Sega Dreamcast in the region. Sega tried to contact Taiwanese producers to create and port games for Saturn and Dreamcast. Koei was one of the first Japanese video game companies to have active operations in both China and Taiwan, so Saturn games such as Sangokushi IV and Sangokushi V have seen official releases in these regions. Daewoo released Senken Kigyouden in 1999 and C&E work with Game Bank to release official Saturn games as well. Dianji Sega Saturn and Dianji Dreamcast were magazines published at the time.

On November 27, 1998, T-Zone released Dreamcast with 4 games. Demand was estimated on 10,000 units but due to shortages, only small part of this got to Taiwan and the rest was expected to arrive on January 1999. Sega.com Asia, (online subsidiary of Sega Japan for Asia)announced in August 2000, that Gigamedia will launch a online service for consoles in late 2000/early 2001, but it never happened. Sega.com Asia said in August that Sega sold 400,000 Dreamcast consoles in Taiwan and expects the number to exceed 1.2 million by 2002.

After Dreamcast

From 2001, Dysin Interactive began releasing games from Sakura Taisen series. In 2005, Sega gave AtGames exclusive distribution rights to Greater China region. Some of the titles were also released by Interwise Multimedia (mid-2000s), New Era (from 2005 to 2019) and Shanda Games (Chain Chronicle). In 2015, distribution was took over by Sega Taiwan.