Background/History:
The Dendy is a video game console sold in Russia from 1992 to 1996, made by a company called Steepler. It was a Taiwanese produced clone of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), exclusively produced for the Russian market. As the NES was never produced in an official capacity for the Russian market, the Dendy was the only video game console on Russia's market at its introduction in late 1992. Most of the games were pirated copies of NES games. Some games were originally programmed, but most of these were still copyright infringing: one of these games was Somari, a clone of Sonic the Hedgehog with the Mario character. Many multicarts (cartridges with multiple games on them) were produced. The cartridges looked much like Famicom (the Japanese version of the NES) cartridges.
The initial price was 39,000 rubles (about $94), limiting its sales as the price was equivalent to a month's salary for an average person. By 1994, the price was down to $30-$35, and over a million had been sold, with an additional 100,000-125,000 units being sold on a monthly basis. In 1994, the Dendy's success spurred Sega to introduce their Genesis console to the Russian market. Steepler was reorganized into the Dendy company, and in November 1994 signed an agreement that Dendy the exclusive rights to sell the newer Super Nintendo console in Russia. It is unclear how the Dendy was discontinued: one theory suggests that Dendy signed a deal with Nintendo to sell licensed cartridge games in lieu of pirated games. Since licensed games cost several times more than pirated games, they were not affordable to the Russian market.
What Makes It Obscure?
The Dendy was the first successful console on the Russian market, but it was exclusively sold in Russia. It has aspects of it that are unlike any licensed console, and to the Western eye, it looks like what it is - a knockoff.
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