Portidata Software Interactivo
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Portidata Software Interactivo was a software distribution company[1] founded in Portimão[2], Algarve, Portugal by Portuguese businessman José Martins and Portuguese programmer Rui Manuel Tito.
The Company was originally created for the distribution of computer systems for companies but seeing the failure of it they decided to turn to the import of original video games. They travelled to England to a video games ehxibition show in order to sign contracts with as many companies as possible. With pratically no garanties of success to offer (in Rui Manuel Tito's words[1] "We asked them"... "How many games were you able to sell in Portugal last year?" which they answered... "None"... so we added... "there you go... if you sell just one you're already making profit") the two businessmen managed to sign exclusivity contracts with many companies like Interplay, Gremlin, Virgin, Electronic Arts, and Sony among others.
In a market where piracy reigned (at that time copyright legislation in Portugal did not prohibited the copying of a game, prohibiting only the sale of a game without instructions in Portuguese), the two men struggled to find stores interested in their products dealing with only a few stores in Lisbon, since outside the capital no one was interested in buying original video games since these were three times more expensive than pirated copies. This scenario changed shortly after, when legislation in Portugal was altered and copying games and software turned to be considered a crime and the two started to distribute to many stores as they could, including supermarket chains, toys stores, office supply vendors, bookstores and others.
After the accquiring of Virgin (with which Portidata had a contract) by Viacom New Media (which owned Sega's rights) Portidata tried to secure the rights to distribute Sega video games and consoles in Portugal, only to discover that the rights had already been obtained by another Portuguese company, namely Ecofilmes. The Aveiro based film distribution company had lots of contacts, but their costumers portfolio was essentially composed of video rental shops, and they needed to gain access to more means of distribution, so Ecofilmes approached Portidata (which had a huge costumers portfolio) and the two companies reached an agreement, with Portidata becoming an exclusive Ecofilmes distributor. In 1998, Portidata Software Interactivo was acquired by and merged into Ecofilmes.