El Esquimal: Atari/Sears box manufactured in Mexico

Ballblaɀer · November 18, 2018

I've not found much in the way of documentation about any inroads that the Atari VCS/2600 made into Mexico, and some photos from previous forum threads here have vanished, making research a bit more challenging. But I've tried to learn as much as I can after recently picking up this super exciting Atari/Sears(!) box for El Esquimal ("The Eskimo", a.k.a. Frostbite by Activision) from Mexico.

To my knowledge this is the first box of this specific style to be documented. It's entirely plain except for the single-color-print Atari 2600 logos, stripe around the box, and some minimal text on the back, along with a drawing of a 2600 controller that matches those found on the backs of Atari-licensed Polyvox boxes from Brazil, among some others. The box "art" is simply an El Esquimal cartridge label stuck to the box. The blue strip with the Sears logo is a sticker. There's also an original Sears "IVA INCLUIDO" (value-added tax included) price tag that well illustrates that deep price-cuts happened to Atari games in Mexico, too.

The box contents are of course very interesting as well! "Atari Cartucho Original" cartridges from Mexico are fairly well known and documented, but I've not seen anyone ever mention finding one complete with a box, tray, and manual. The manual is made of thin, lightweight paper, and the inner cardboard tray is also relatively flimsy. I've scanned the manual and box and will gladly make them available to atarimania, atariboxed, etc.

A few words about Sears in Mexico as background: the first one opened in Mexico City in 1947. By 1981 there were 43 Sears stores in the country. A national economic crisis (or at the very least, severe stagnation) lasted through much of the 1980s, but Sears stores largely survived via general cost-cutting measures, as far as I can tell. In 1992 there remained 37 Sears stores in the country. I haven't yet been able to find any vintage newspaper or catalog ads, but there's this AtariAge forum post from 2006 where user SegaMasterMonster remembers purchasing (genuine) Atari games from Sears in Mexico. If anyone can share more information about Atari's partnership with Sears in Mexico I'd be very interested to learn about it.

Getting back to the box, the key information gleaned from it (and the manual) is that this was manufactured in Mexico by Gradiente Mexicana S.A. As has been mentioned in a few discussions about "Atari Cartucho Original" carts found in Mexico (including the forum thread linked just above), the cartridge label style closely resembles those produced for Polyvox, the Atari-licensed distributor/publisher in Brazil. Turns out that's for a very good reason: Gradiente, a Brazil-based company, owned Polyvox at the time. Coincidentally, if you check out the scan of the back of the Frostbite box produced by Polyvox that's on Atarimania, you'll see a "Gradiente Industrial" sticker on it.

Gradiente, a quite successful manufacturer (link goes to a Telebrasil Nov/Dec 1983 magazine article in Portuguese; requires Adobe Flash) of televisions, audio equipment, telephonic equipment, etc. was founded in 1964 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. They set up a subsidiary company/factory in Mexico in 1974. This international expansion for Gradiente came during a period of great success and growth in Brazil, during which legal restrictions and "market reserve" policies in Brazil banned or otherwise strongly limited the import of electronics. The VCS had first made its way into Brazil largely through gray-market means, smuggled back home by tourists returning from the USA, or similar methods. With Gradiente seeking additional sales markets, as well as new reasons to produce and sell televisions, they entered the video gaming market in Brazil through their Polyvox brand label, and acquired official Atari licensing rights. What I didn't know prior to picking up this box & manual and digging into the history is that Gradiente *also* produced some official Atari products through their Mexico factory, too.

Gradiente's reasoning behind expanding into Mexico can be learned to some extent through this 12/19/82 interview with Eugênio Staub (Google Translated to English), then-president of Gradiente (as well as the founder and 1st president of ELETROS (Brazil's National Association of Electronics Manufacturers). The long and short of it is that Gradiente wanted to grow their marketing capabilities in addition to remaining a frontrunner in A/V technology and development. I'm sure there's some good research to be done on historical Brazil/Mexico economic relations, but that's a bit beyond the scope of this post.

With regard to the rise of Atari in Brazil, i.e. the precursor to its entry into Mexico, I strongly recommend this (English language) scholarly work (kinephanos.ca).

I don't know exactly when the games in Mexico were manufactured and sold. I would guess based on the titles manufactured and from the timeline as we know it that this was around the same time as Polyvox was selling games in Brazil (i.e. late 1983 and onward). I suppose that it was likely around the time that 2600 Vader models were being made, though, based on this current listing for a Gradiente-manufactured Atari 2600 Vader system, complete with a manual/catalog (?) with a prominent Gradiente logo on it. If I had the available funds and space to properly store and display this I'd have tried to snap it up right away, but as of now it's available for anyone who wants a largely unknown piece of international Atari history. AA user javiero spotted it as well, and posted about it earlier this month, which is what spurred me to finally finish up this post.

Of course, Gradiente has at least one additional, more well-known connection to Atari: they released the "Phantom System", a Brazilian Famiclone, that made use of Atari 7800 shells that Gradiente had on hand. Apparently Gradiente was prepared to go on to produce 7800 consoles, but decided against it due to the poor global sales of the 5200. The Phantom System was purportedly the most popular NES clone in Brazil.

Timeline of Atari/Gradiente/Polyvox

1964 - Gradiente founded in Sao Paulo, Brazil (October)
1967 - Polyvox founded in Sao Paulo, Brazil
1974 - Gradiente sets up subsidiary Gradiente Mexicana in Mexico
1979 - Gradiente acquires Polyvox, their biggest competitor (December)
1982 - Gradiente partners with Warner to introduce Atari... somewhere (per Gradiente's current website, which may be wrong)
1983 - Polyvox officially introduces the Atari 2600 in Brazil (September/October; unlicensed systems and clones had already become popular in Brazil; Polyvox's advertising made clear that this was "Atari from Atari", the real thing)
1988 - Gradiente produces the Phantom System (NES clone in 7800 shell) in Brazil
1989 - Gradiente Mexicana closes (or, possibly as early as 1987?)
1993 - sales of Polyvox Atari consoles in Brazil come to an end

Ballblaɀer · November 24, 2018

*kicks tumbleweed aside*

Scans of the box and manual are now available at Atarimania.

Now back to your regularly scheduled 14,000+ replies about an "Atari" console that will almost certainly never be released (and still in the 2600 forum after all this time, for some reason)...