History of Sega in the United States of America

Outlines

Tonka

• Talk about their beginnings as a toy company, and why they were the best fit for SoA's needs at the time (they had a lot of toy industry experience, and were one of the few companies which both had the resources needed to truly launch a competitor to the NES, and ALSO one of the few companies who was willing to do so - few large companies wanted to risk getting on the huge, popular NoA's bad side at the time.)
• Absolutely write something clarifying and correcting the current slant Tonka has in game history. Unintentionally of course, and its a larger issue with hyperbole and game history (especially with "negative" history), but no. Tonka did not do poorly with the Master System. They were actually quite successful most of the time, and only in retrospect and looking at the much larger picture do we come to the conclusion that it "went well but couldve been more successful." Also SoA was happy enough with their work, and let them go more because they just wanted a hands-on approach and to handle things internally.
• Something about the above, why the misconception exists (the box arts being stodgy giving off a low-effort vibe? that it's a toy truck company marketing a video game? because the name Tonka's not relevant anymore and mostly associated with very small children?).
• The grid paper design, reasonings behind it, divisiveness (its bold and "artsy" in some respects, but can also easily appear low budget. would have been fine with just the background, but the arguably low-effort art they put on it reeaaalllyy made it seem cheap, when that was obviously not the intention) and then transition into the box artwork being boldly bad most of the time. And why they did that: they wanted a clean on the shelf look. NES boxes were AAAALLLLL over the place in design, and Tonka wanted something cleaner and newer, all organized. LOVE the idea, but the implementation looks like crap, esp with again that plain ugly redrawn box artwork against those relatively-slick grids.
• Legacy! and mostly (below)
• Sponsorships! One of Sega's biggest Western associations has and always will be licensed sports titles, and this was Tonka baby.

CartridgeCulture (talk) 03:00, 6 November 2021 (EDT)