American Toy company Mattel was the official distributor of Nintendo products in Australia from 1984 to December 1993.
The Mattel company was established in the USA in 1945 and became well known in the 1960s through its toy brands such as Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars. It opened its Australian office in 1968 in Cremone in Victoria (1).
In addition to its role in distribution of Nintendo videogames in a number of territories Mattel has its own history of videogames production as a pioneer of home-gaming units. In 1977 Mattel established its electronics line producing Auto Race, believed to be the first-all-electronic hand held game. In 1980 Mattel electronics formally released its first videogame console the Intellivision (2). The Intellivision was a cartridge-based gaming system and was available as a PAL based system in Australia (3). After some expensive hardware experiments for plugins for its console like its Enhanced Computer System (ECS) in1983 Mattel Electronics shifted away from hardware to focus on game software. Mattel closed down its electronics line in 1984. A casualty of North America’s “videogame crash” (4), and the costly hardware research and development Mattel Electronics had allegedly cost the toy company Mattel a $394 million loss (5).
(1) EBSCO Business Source Database, Mattel Pty Ltd
(2) Matt Barton, Bill Loguidice (May 8, 2008). ” A history of Gaming Platforms: Mattel Intellivision. Gamasutra
(3) Bill Mandle (5 September 1982) Place for new games” The Canberra Times, p.6
(4) Barton and Loguidice
(5) Mattel, Inc. History”. International Directory of Company Histories. Vol.61. St. James Press (2000)
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/mattel-inc-history/
Refrence: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3653/a_history_of_gaming_platforms_.php?print