Why was France the runner-up Electronic game nation?

blanka

Ok, with 80% made in Japan, that country is unbeatable, but what surprises me very much, is that France was a close second when it comes to handheld game penetration, way ahead of number 3: the USA.
How did that happen?
Was a handheld game a good companion to a croisant, du fromage et une bouteille de vin? Did they have Minitel-based online competitions? What was the special thing that happened there?

They seem to have got all the stuff. Massive Bandai sales, Lansay who sold most Gakken and Casio stuff. Ceji and ITMC selling large amounts of Epoch and Entex games. All the Hanzawa ones, Bazin selling the Rosy's. A bunch of "France only" brands like Ludotronic, Orlitronic.

Is there any monsieur here that grew up in the era and knows the magic?

Jamtex · Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 3:16 pm Post subject:

Was it though? Most games were made in Japan, Taiwan or Hong Kong and just sold as either OEM, Licenced or other third party. Even sitting down with notepad and a look at the various games list show that the UK had as many if not more games released...

blanka · Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 9:19 pm Post subject:

UK bought tons of Grandstand and CGL games, but it seems the Brits were just limited to those 2 brands. Maybe the absolute sales figure was higher, but the diversity of items being sold in France was maybe 3 fold.

Jamtex · Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 9:36 pm Post subject:

Yes, but Gakken, Tomy, Casio, Bandai, Coleco, MB, Entex, Tandy, VTech, Texas Instruments, Waddingtons, Sunwing and others all released games officially in the UK. Maybe the number of French companies just makes it seem like a lot of games were released.

blanka · Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 9:45 pm Post subject:

Weird is that on Ebay.co.uk, I never see stuff, especially the Bandai offers are really thin (only from sexizy, but I guess he buys all in Japan). Wonder which VFD Bandai's were sold in the UK for example. For example games like Zaxxon, Vampire, Zackman, Requins, Brique, Pengo, Bowling Professional, Gundam etc. They show up regularly in France, but nowhere else.