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The Brazil NES Market
The majority of gamers believe that the videogame market spans from the Famicom in
Asia, Nintendo in America and Europe, and Nintendo in Australia. Some of you may have
heard of Dendy, a Nintendo clone in Russia. However, most people don't realize that
there is a whole market of Nintendo games in Brazil, some pirate and some not, some
Nintendo and some Famicom. Man, it's a jungle out there!!!
Gradiente
Probably the most well known game manufacturer in Brazil today is Gradiente. Around
1990, Gradiente released a Nintendo clone entitled Phanton System. Having similar looks
to that of a Sega Genesis, the clone included two controllers and a light gun.
Gradiente released a myriad of Nintendo games, some legally released and some not.
There were the illegal Ninteno releases, such as the complete Super Mario Bros. series
which were brought over to the Brazil Nintendo market. However, with the bad there is
also the good. Gradiente bought the rights to many third party Nintendo games, such as
Pac Man and some of the earlier Nintendo titles. Of course, every market has their
unlicensed companies, and Bit Corp. (probably others too) were just itching to get their
foot in the Nintendo market. Gradiente was the perfect company to help Bit Corp. release
their NES games.
In 1995, Gradiente finally became a licensed Nintendo producer, releasing Nintendo's
official Nintendo Entertainment System in Brazil. Gradiente has been releasing Nintendo games for Nintendo up until 2003 --- when they simply just quit.
Gradiente has always been well respected in
Brazil, even though they did start out as a pirate outfit. Piraters cannot get in trouble
in Brazil.
Hydron
The trouble with Brazil was that they are located somewhere in the middle, so to speak.
The majority of clones accepted the 60 pin Famicom games while others released 72 pin
Nintendo clones. Some people (me included) get sick and tired of having to use adapters
to play Famicom or NES games, I guess the residents of Brazil felt the same way.
Anyway a smart person at the game company Hydron decided that if they manufactured
"double ended" videogames, one side being for Nintendo and the other side for Famicom,
they might sell better.
As with the other Brazil releases, there are several hundred Hydron releases out there.
Funny thing to mention, Hydron even got their design patented. Yep, that's right, number
MU7001199. I guess Hydron felt that they could rip off of Nintendo, though they didn't
want to be ripped off from themselves :)
CCE
Although many people believe that CCE had only produced 60 pin Famicom games in
Brazil, they had actually produced quite a bit of larger NES games under the Turbogame
guise. The Turbogame releases came in clamshell cases, as opposed to the crummy
cardboard boxes; they also included instructions in the Portugues language. I'm not sure
how many 72 pin games CCE had released although I imagine the numbers would be quite
high.
Dismac and Magic Toys
Dismac had released a Nintendo clone in 1990 that was cosmetically similar to an official
Nintendo system of the time. Naming their clone BIT System, Dismac released several 72
pin BIT System carts. The games were mainley the same old same old ones which have
been pirated way too much. Battle City, Galaga, and Pinball were just a few of the titles
that Dismac had released.
On the other hand, Magic Toys had actually put out a few "nicer" Nintendo titles. The
Magic Toys game artwork was horrendous; it featured an Atari-like joystick and a
pixellated picture of a racing game, maybe Rad Racer? Although the artwork was terrible,
the games were actually a bit more interesting, some were anyway. Magic had released its
fair share of multicart games, though they also released some rather unique titles to be
pirated, such as Ninja Gaiden 3 (!) What became of Magic Toys is still not known, I had
heard that it was still in business today though I do not know that for certain.
Overall, Brazil is like the Hongkong of the western world. Some companies such as
Gradiente released a nice variety of NES games, ranging from unlicensed titles such as
Baby Boomer and Captain Comic to illegal copies of Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt. Other companies
such as Dismac released the crummy NES pirate games that most pirates put out. It's the
luck of the draw of what you're able to find and what you're able to pick up. I would
have never expected that Brazil had such a big pirated games market though I now know.
Some really neat stuff, I know where I want to visit :)
For more pictures of weird Brazil Nintendo games (courtesy of Bonaccorsi), click here.
Special thanks to Luiz (username Bonaccorsi of Ebay) for the pictures of the goods he is selling, and to |tsr's site for some of the information. Thanks to Marcelo Barbosa for providing |tsr with the information on his page :) Last but not least, thank you Ricardo Cappellano for some of the Gradiente information.
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