The game console "Dandy" became known to domestic customers back in the 90s of the last century. Despite such an “ancient” age of the console, even today there are notorious fans of exclusives that came out for NES hardware in those days.
For example, the eternal multiplatform Super Mario Bros., which remains an unconditional hit to this day, or the classic Japanese RPG Legends Of Zelda, which chained its plot and indescribable atmosphere of players to small screens of antediluvian TVs.
The prefix "Dandy": the story of creation
Few people know that such a popular console is just an unofficial copy of the third-generation NES consoles. The fact is that the products of the Japanese company Nintendo have never been officially released in the territory of the former CIS. The local market was not interesting to foreign investors due to relative poverty and flourishing piracy. But thanks to the latter, domestic gamers were able to taste most of the game hits of the time.
The enterprising company Steepler occupied a free niche in 1992 by launching a game console for sale in Russia, which was assembled in Taiwan and was a hardware clone of Nintendo consoles. At the same time, the logo (an elephant in a red tank top and blue cap) was developed by domestic animator Ivan Maximov.
The prefix "Dandy", the price of which at that time was about $ 94, was very fond of the local public, which allowed the company to sell more than a million copies of the console by 1994.
Lineup of Dandy consoles
Over time, the Steepler product range has changed. More sophisticated and equipped models were born.
Initially, in 1992, the Micro Genius IQ-501 and 502 consoles entered the domestic market (in Russia they were called Dendy Classic I and II, respectively). Both variations were very different in appearance from the original NES, and the joysticks looked more like toys than devices.
In 1993, more advanced models with built-in support for the gun controller became available to consumers from the CIS. We are talking about Dendy Junior, which had much more in common with its Japanese original. In addition, the supplier company produced other clones of the console (for example, the Subor prefix), which had a slightly different device.
Most Popular Dandy Games
The pirate console owes its popularity, of course, to a wide range of high-quality games released for the NES operating system. The prefix “Dandy” supported most of them, so Russian gamers are familiar with such masterpieces as “Super Mario”, “Mortal Kombat” and “Legends of Zelda”.
The world-famous Tetris puzzle, developed back in the USSR by domestic programmer Alexei Pazhitnov , also entered the top 20 best-selling games . True, the rights to this series quickly passed to foreign owners.
A good game is considered a product of Konami, which in 1989 released the platformer of the same name in the comic series "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." An interesting feature of this game is the ability to switch between game characters who had different abilities.
Information medium “Dandy”
The third generation NES consoles used cartridges as the storage medium . The game console "Dandy" was no exception. Despite the fact that an unofficial clone could support licensed games, such a distributive did not appear on the Russian market. But there were more than enough counterfeit pirate cartridges, and judging by the reviews, not every one of them turned out to be a worker.
Customers often come across cartridges with the loud names of “200 in 1” or “999 in 1”. As noted in the reviews, in fact, the contents of the medium was nothing more than a set of useless modifications and additions that stood out by the seller in a separate game.
The prefix "Dandy", games for which were released by third-party developers, boasts the presence of several exclusives. Even the Taiwanese manufacturer of consoles (TXC Corporation) has tried its hand in this field. One of the famous Russian authors and developers of games for Dendy is the programmer Alexander Chudov. Also, domestic companies released translations of some popular games, mostly technical ones.
The Dandy brand and its life in the media
Such a staggering popularity of consoles in the domestic market has led to the fact that the simple business of distributing consoles has overgrown with an entire commercial network, and then with a cultural heritage.
In 1994, Steepler, with the participation of Inkombank, founded the subsidiary Dandy, which was engaged in the distribution of game consoles.
She even managed to get exclusive rights to implement the official NES consoles in the same year. A similar decision by the Japanese company was caused by the intention of a domestic company to boycott the sale of another Sega Mega Drive console known at that time.
The media did not leave aside the fact of the success of virtual products in Russia. Several thematic programs have appeared that tell about the novelties and subtleties of the game world. Tournaments were held for various games, which were also broadcast by television. In general, it was the appearance of Dendy that marked the dawn of the gaming industry in the territory of the former USSR.
Nintendo and Sega competition
Sega Master System and NES were the two most popular 8-bit consoles in the late 80s and early 90s of the last century. In the future, experts will confirm that Nintendo won this competition in the US market due to the lower price of the game console and high-quality exclusives. The situation in the domestic market is approximately the same.
Consoles with a portable NES system, as follows from the reviews, were more popular due to the elementary nature of copying the console architecture.
Therefore, their clones were much more than in the case of Sega. In addition, at the disposal of customers was a huge assortment of cartridges, albeit not always reliable. In this indicator, the prefix “Dandy” loses: “Sega” possessed a modest but fully working official distributor (it was still sold from under the counter).
The modern life of the legendary console
Despite the fact that the production of games for the console stopped in 1995, a huge layer of quality products still managed to come out. Some of the series that were extremely popular in those years are almost forgotten in our time. Therefore, even today there are lovers of antiquity, ready to once again plunge into the games of their youth. This is not surprising, considering how much the Dandy prefix costs today (about $ 5), and how many good franchises it supported.
Most of the games that have been released for NES get beautiful interpretations to this day. Nevertheless, many fans prefer the classics to new fashion trends, so do not be surprised at the sight of the antediluvian console in someone’s home - perhaps the owner just decided to plunge into the fairy-tale world of Zelda again or to play the scene with the Princess from Mario.