History of Sega in Bosnia and Herzegovina

History of Sega in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Official Sega distributor(s): Comy (1990-1991), IVC (1992), Europatrade (1994-1998), Videotop (2004-2010), Computerland (2010-2015), Videotop (2016-2018), Iris Mega (2018-present)

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Socialist Yugoslavia

Socialist Yugoslavia did not belong to the Warsaw Pact making it more open to Western technologies than the countries of the Eastern Bloc. In the 70s Yugoslavia was one of the countries where Sega imported its game machines. As in other communist countries, local companies created their own consoles, such as the Geti-3220 produced by the Slovenian company Gorenje from 1977. Foreign consoles also reached the country but in small numbers.

The only known company that sold Sega Master System was Comy, which began importing the console from 1990.In March 25, 1991, the first Sega club was found called Video Games Club were people could rent Master System console. At the beginning of 1992, IVC became a distributor and still sold Master System.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia in March 1992, but it caused a war. Sega and Nintendo consoles appeared during the war as a donation from other countries. During the war clones became popular, including Rambo TV Game, a Atari 2600 clone that was quickly replaced by famiclones like Terminator 2 (same design as Sega Mega Drive) and the Pegasus console.

Official Sega products appeared in Bosnia thanks to the Croatian company Europatrade, which had been importing these consoles to this region since 1994. Thanks to this company, Mega Drive II, Master System II and Game Gear were released here. In 1995, the Mega CD II and Mega Drive 32X were released. The sale and the number of places where it was possible to buy the console was of course limited due to the hostilities. Beside famiclones, Sega had competition in form of Super Nintendo, Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System distributed from 1994 by Croatian company Pinel Export-Import.

The war ended in 1995 with the Dayton Agreement. The country was 80% destroyed and the population could not afford to new console. This resulted in an increase in the number of bootlegs, including Sega consoles and games. Rumors say that Power Pegasus appeared in 1996.

New consoles such as Sega Saturn (still distributed by Europatrade from early 1996) and Nintendo 64 (still distributed by Pinel Export-Import from March 1997) were released in Bosnia and despite the fact that they were more available than their predecessors - Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo - they were still too expensive. In the late 90s, the PlayStation was released, which thanks to the possibility of easy piracy became quite popular here.

From 2004 Sega started cooperation with Videotop, but from 2010, Computerland began representing Sega in this region. Videotop return in 2016 as a distributor in the former Yugoslavia.In 2017, Videotop became the property of Computerland Group and in 2018, Videotop was acquired by Colby which also belongs to the Computerland Group. The distribution was taken over by Iris Mega.