Back to the purples...

Some time ago I wrote a few messages about the purple Master System games only released in Portugal. It's been a while since I've completed the full set of these with the console included, so I decided to take my time and make yet another group picture with all the titles and the console. Hope you enjoy it.

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Portuguese Purple Exclusives for Master System

I usually don't mind if the editions I buy are portuguese or from different countries. Sometimes it is best for me to find a foreign version of a rare game for a cheaper price as much as the language of the game remains in english. However, not always that is possible. Some games are one-country exclusives and I have to search for the in the original place they were released.

And that's the case of the portuguese purple versions of master system. These editions were released much later, when Mega Drive took the place of the older 8bit console in worldwide markets. Ecofilmes, the official distributor in Portugal, released the latest version of Master System (III Compact) which was officially released in Brazil by the hand of Tec Toy. Following Brazil's example of keeping a very successfull console still alive and for a cheaper price in the market, Ecofilmes decided to release their own edition of 16 Tec Toy games, some of wich are in fact unavailable elsewhere in the world besides Brazil, Portugal and Spain. So far I was able to get 13 of those 16 games as well as the console itself. The public attention was already concentrated on Mega Drive by the time these games came out and by that time not many people wouldn't be willing to buy an old console despite its cheap price. Basically, it is not easy to spot these games even in Portugal. Many of them have already left the country directly into foreign collectors' homes.

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Master System Tec Toy: Portugal VS Brazil

Tec Toy, a brasilian distributor for most Sega consoles and games in the past, still produces several consoles and games from the old Mega Drive and Master System times. Some console and game variants are exclusive releases, unavailable in any other part of the world.

Back to the past... Tec Toy was responsible for the release of several (well, dozens, maybe even hundreds) top games in brazilian portuguese. But they went even further... in order to catch the attention of brazilian kids, tec toy released several exclusive games related to brazilian tv shows and comics and converted many important games from other systems (such as Game Gear) into Master System games. Some versions of several games, such as Street Fighter II', Baku Baku, Sonic Blast and Virtua Fighter only exist in Brasil. Besides the regular blue covers that are different from all the master system covers we're used to see around the world, there are also a lot of card boxes, originally released before they were replaced with the plastic ones.

Following the brazilian example, Ecofilmes from Portugal picked up some of those tec toy games and released their own versions. Only a very small amount of tec toy games were ever released in Portugal. These editions have two important tings: exclusive art cover, with the purple shading at the bottom of the box, and they also include the tec toy serial number. These are hard to get a hold of - even in Portugal, due to the low number of games available and sold. The ones pictured bellow are all the complete games I could ever find. There are at least 8 more tec toy games, including a very important one: Sonic Spinball. This Sonic Spinball version also exists in Australia, with a silver cart and box, and was released in Portugal - as I have one copy myself. But the original Ecofilmes release of that game... I am yet to find one.

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