InterAct Accessories

From Sega Retro

InterAct Accessories Inc. was a video game peripheral manufacturer founded in 1991 by 23-year-old Todd Hays.

Recoton acquired the company in 1995, though the InterAct brand was kept in service. Recoton had been producing electronics equipment for years, having made a few video game accessories of its own before the takeover. Following this, InterAct took control over everything video game related from within the group, with factories in Hong Kong, mainland China and the US. InterAct spent their years making many successful products, becoming one of the top video game accessory manufacturers in the US.

Sometime during the mid-1990s InterAct launched its most successful product line to date - the GameShark line. InterAct struck a deal with UK-based Datel to market various Action Replay devices in North America under the name, though later went on to produce other GameShark creations, such as the Sega Dreamcast Massive Memory Card Plus.

For whatever reason, InterAct owned Performance. It is not currently known whether Recoton bought Performance and merged the two under one name, or whether Performance was merely a brand. Likewise Quality Joystick seems to be related - these may be brands adopted by Recoton for Europe or entirely separate companies. Recoton's manufacturing subsiduary STD Manufacturing built many of InterAct (and QJ)'s products.

Recoton went bankrupt around 2001-ish, the result was that InterAct was taken with it, but the GameShark brand was sold to Mad Catz.

Hardware Produced

Mega Drive

Saturn

Dreamcast

External Links