History of Sega in Chile

History of Sega in Chile
Official Sega distributor(s): Redi (199x-1994), Radio Center LTDA (1995-200x) , Latam Games (2012-present)

---

This teeny-tiny article needs some work. You can help us by expanding it.

---

In Chile, the Sega Mega Drive (original model) and Sega Master System II were distibuted by Redi in the early 1990s. The consoles were based on their North American designs (and hence, the Mega Drive was known as "Genesis" in this region).

Both consoles were known to be on sale in 1991, along with Sonic the Hedgehog.

Acording to the testimony of Ludwig Carl Kommer Bruger, founder of Redi, on April's 1993 issue of the Chilean magazine Muy Interessante Sega dominated only a 25% of the market for consoles and videogames in Chile, due to a late entry of the company in the business, since Nintendo had already entered in the Chilean market two years earlier, initially by the hands of Remus- Repuestos Musalem (owned by a rich family known as Musalem Yunis) and later by H. Briones y Cia (owned by Hernán Briones Gorostiaga, a Chilean industrialist and member of Fundación Pinochet, which was President of the Sofofa- Sociedad de Fomento Fabril / Sofofa- Industrial Development Society, one of Chile's leading employers' associations).

H. Briones y Cia had full support of Nintendo of America, with advertisement campaigns on TV and also published an official Chilean version of the Club Nintendo magazine, on the other hand Redi had few advertisement campaigns, with only a few commercials being aired on TV and there was no official Sega magazines in the country except for some Spanish imported magazines like Super Juegos or Mega Sega which were more expensive and could arrive in the country six months later than the date they were originally published in Europe. In fact one of the first commercials, aired on Chilean TV was not favourable to the image of Sega, becoming subject of mockery among Chilean gamers, since in the intro of the commercial (which is actually the intro to Sonic the Hedgehog for Mega Drive) a voice is heard saying "Si, si, si, si, si, si"... ("Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes...") while Sonic is actually saying "No" with its hand.

Radio Center LTDA in cooperation with Tectoy sold Sega 32X and Sega Saturn in Chile.

Latam Games distributes Sega games in Chile from 2012. The company also cooperated with NC Games.

Metropolis Intercom launched the Sega Channel in 1996.