History of Sega in Croatia
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| History of Sega in Croatia |
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| Official Sega distributor(s): Nissho Iwai (1990-1991; 1994-1996), Magma (1996-1998), Videotop (2004-2010), Computerland (2010-2014), Videotop (2014-2018), Colby (2018-present) |
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.[1] 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.
Sega Master System was introduced to Yugoslavia in 1990[2] by Nissho Iwai, who supplied local Yugoslavian distributors with consoles and games. Video games for the systems were reviewed in Svet Kompjutera magazine from September 1990 to January 1991 and Svet Igara reviewed accessories for the system. In March 25, 1991, the first Sega club was found called Video Games Club were people could rent Master System console. The creation of further distribution network was cut shortly after breakup of the state in June 1991.
Croatia
Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. One of the first and popular consoles was Rambo TV Game, a Atari 2600 clone, that was quickly replaced by famiclones like Terminator 2, the most popular of this clones, which box design resemble Sega Mega Drive 2.
In 1994, Nissho Iwai entered the Croatian market and began to supply sub-distributors[3] like VTI and Europatrade with video games. Sub-distributors started to sell Mega Drive II, Master System II,Game Gear, followed with Mega CD II and Mega Drive 32X in the next year[4]. Beside famiclones, Sega had competition in form of Super Nintendo, Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System distributed from 1994 by Alcu Rijeka[5] and Amiga CD32 with Atari Jaguar distributed by smaller retaliers. Sega's 16-bit console had good sales figures, but overall, the Croatian market was very marginal business compare to other European countries[3].
When Sega Europe took distribution from Nissho Iwai after mid-1995, Sega Saturn was distributed by one exclusive distributor - Magma[3] from early 1996, with no competition from other fifth generation consoles, until March 1997 when Alcu Rijeka released Nintendo 64[6] and until July 1997[7] when Algoritam released PlayStation. Even with that, Saturn wasn't popular in Croatia and Sega was selling consoles until 1998.
Sega Dreamcast was also released in Croatia, but so far there are not many informations about its distribution.
In 2004 Slovenian company Videotop began selling Sega games in this country.[8] In 2010, the distribution was take over by Computerland but in 2014 Videotop returned as a distributor and in 2016 became a representative of Sega in all former Yugoslavia.[9]In 2017, Videotop became the property of Computerland Group.[10] In 2018, Videotop was acquired by Colby which also belongs to the Computerland Group which means that the distributor of Sega is now Colby.[11]
References
- ↑ File:Sega_Company_Profile_1970.pdf
- ↑ Svet Kompjutera (SCG) #73: "Oktobar 1990" page 45
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 File:CTW_UK_586_Europe_Supplement.pdf, page 3
- ↑ Hacker #6 Europatrade commercial
- ↑ https://archive.org/details/album-panini-asterix-bas-su-ludi-ovi-gali/page/n33/mode/2up?view=theater
- ↑ Hacker #24 Nintendo 64 Ultra Konzola
- ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/19980703064424/http://www.playstation-europe.com/playstation/pr/launch.htm
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20040603144807/http://www.videotop.hr:80/
- ↑ http://www.videotop.si/en/videotop-je-postal-uradni-zastopnik-zaloznika-sega/
- ↑ http://www.videotop.si/druzba-iris-mega-d-o-o-kupila-druzbo-videotop-skupina-d-o-o/
- ↑ http://www.colby.si/