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Do we know anything about the non american companies?


lucifershalo

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All Technovision games were actually first announced for release in the

U.S. (brochures were even passed out at the 1983 Summer CES) before

the company decided to provide exclusively for the European market

instead, where it released Nuts, Pharoah’s Curse and Save our Ship.

 

 

Suntek is a distributor of pirated games (sometimes with altered

graphics) from various sources. Suntek is found in both Europe and

Australia. Cases have the infamous S.S. imprinted on the back. The

games have black-bordered labels, with the words “Video Game” above

the artwork, as well as an SS-0xx serial number on the bottom part. The

serial number is also displayed on the box. The game titles are

trademarked. Remarkable feature on the box is that it lists the cartridge

number in 5 languages in the exact same way as on Goliath boxes,

including the same font. There obviously is some kind of connection.

 

 

Dynamics’ four Atari 2600 games were distributed by Dynamics

Marketing GmBH, Hamburg, Germany.

Laser-Loop, Orbit Base and Break Down come in Bomb cases. Jumping

Jack, the final release, comes in an Imagic-style case with a grip. The

colorful Dynamics boxes also remind of Imagic, with a (cardboard) tray,

holding the cartridge, that slides out of the bottom side. The instructions

consist of a set of small cards in three languages (German, English,

French).

Dynamics was into hardware too. They distributed their own version of the

Starplex Game Selex cartridge switcher. Dynamics was also the company

that sold the legendary Competition Pro joystick. Fun fact: Dynamics had a

sister company in England which sold the same products, but of lesser

quality than the German equivalent. They were rivals on the German

market. The English products were way cheaper but in the long term they

gave up competition because of the lack of quality. Dynamics made sticks

for all kind of game systems as well as for the PC, but they were not able

to build another successful device comparable to the Competition Pro.

Last sign of live was in 1995. To this date, Dynamics products have only

been found in Germany.

 

From: DP Psychopedia (most of this info came from Marco, btw).

 

 

My gathered Home Vision info:

 

Home Vision games were manufactured in Taiwan by the GEM International Corporation and distributed by Vidéo Direct International (VDI), which was situated in Bruxelles, Belgium. The French bureau (and show-room) of VDI was situated in Paris, France.

They launched a serie of 8 Atari 2600 compatible titles in september 1983 and by the end of that year at least 30 titles were available (they released 8 titles each month).

They also released the GEM-1000 (or Charlemagne 999) Junior Computer, the first of a series of home computers (the others being: GEM-2000 Family mini-computer, GEM-3000 Family Super Computer and GEM-4000 Professional Computer), the H.V.C. 2001 game console (together with 20 game titles) and the H.V.C. 2032 memory expansion (which upgraded the console to 32K) and keyboard.

Besides the 37 titles (Teddy Apple being the latest Home Vision title known to exist), GEM International Corporation also produced the famous Repro Cart, which was able to copy any Atari 2600 game onto the Repro-Game cartridge in only 4 seconds.

The game Parachute was already pre-burned on the Repro-Game cartridge and a seperate Robot Fight cartridge was also included.

Some of the Home Vision games aren't true originals:

The first two Home Vision titles (Robot Fight and War 2000) are originally Dimax (or Sinmax) titles (but it has to be said that Space Robot from Dimax / Sinmax is actually a hack of Missile Command from Atari).

The seventh Home Vision title (Tennis) is clearly a hack of Tennis from Activision.

The last four Home Vision titles (Plate Mania, Tanks War, Cosmic War and Teddy Apple) are originally games made by Bit Corporation (Dancing Plate, Phantom Tank, Space Tunnel and Open, Sesame!) from Taiwan.

The still not found Jacky Jump and Magic Carpet are also originally made by Bit Corporation (Bobby is Going Home and Mr. Postman).

Although most Home Vision titles (and in some cases even their ROMs) are known by now, their original cartridges and model numbers still have to be found.

It's almost certain that two of these cartridges really did exist: Jacky Jump (which was reviewed in Tilt back in 1983) and Go Go Home Monster (which was shown in a Home Vision ad back in 1983, together with its box).

 

8)

Edited by Rom Hunter
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Quelle is a German catalogue mail order service with outlets in numerous high streets. originally they sold all major brands, VCS, Intellivision etc.... I remember starting out with my VCS, my second lot of games included The Beauty and the Beast, which didn't work on my VCS and I wondered why not. I didn't know there were different incompatible systems :-) At first they gave me a hard time, returning an opened Intellivision game, as opened games couldn't be returned. But I managed to exchange it for VCS Demon Attack in the end.

 

My local Quelle in my town was great. After spending loads and loads on VCS titles in their shop, the manager in the radio/TV/video games department used to let me look in the stock room for titles not on display. Had a great time rummaging through all those great VCS titles.

 

Later, when VCS titles had disappeared from the catalogue/shops, I found Quelle branded VCS titles on the shelves, row after row, mostly the same (renamed) titles. I didn't trust them, they looked cheap, so I stayed clear of those.

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Telegames as well (as they were if memory recalls, a UK company with an american division) and i beleive they did support the 2600, whether they released 2600 material or not i do not know

They reissued some stuff and published some unreleased games for several systems, but they never really produced any original efforts that I can recall.

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I have seen the telegames logo used on 1 or 2 lynx games (can't remember which ones)

 

Telegames is still alive (their website is here), the last thing I knew they were working on is the Ultimate Games packages for the DS and an unreleased game for GBA called "Santa Claus Saves the Earth.) They did make a handful of games for the Nintendo handheld platforms. By the way, the Telegames logo is seen on Qix for the Lynx, among other(s?).

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