Do you remember being a kid and seeing the Mattel logo
on the boxes of your favorite toys? Every boy knew
growing up owned some Hotwheels and Matchbox cars.
Every girl had a barbie or two they loved. They were
great toys!!! The thing they can't seem to do correctly is
Video Games. Believe it or not Mattel has had a rather long history in the world of video games. Mattel maybe the best in the world at toys for years not , but they should have learned from there mistakes before trying some thing they where not prepared for.
It all started way way back in 1978 , when Mattel decided to try and throw their hat into the video game market. At the time the market was dominated by Atari. The Atari VCS selling faster than they could be produced. Seeing this Mattel wanted a piece of the pie. So they put out the Intellivision. Short for Intelligent Television this unit would stay on the market for about 4 years.In the short 4 year they would only go on to tell 3 million units , as were Atari VCS would go on to sell over 30 million units.
Their Next Venture into the world of Video Games finds them playing with the big boy of gaming, Nintendo. At the time Nintendo was trying to get a production partner for the NES. After failing to reach agreements with there first choice Atari. They ask Mattel to manufacture NES for the PAL region.
Nintendo has said it was a Mistake in hindsight as the sega master system far outsold the NES. I don't know if Mattel at fault in this one. The only thing Nintendo can state is "It didn't sell well" and they "misjudged Mattel's enthusiasm about the console".
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