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Sperry Corporation, known as 華王貿易有限公司 in Chinese and not to be confused with the American equipment and electronics company of the same name, is a company located in Taipei, Taiwan that was founded in 1977. They are notable for their Megacom brand name, which was used on some pirate NES multicarts, releases of MSX games on cartridge, and various accessories for video game consoles. The company is strongly connected to Dar Yar Electronics, another Taiwanese game company. As of writing, they are still in business and currently focused on the development and sale of third party video game parts and accessories as well as other consumer electronics. Some of their currently supported products include the Dual Catchmon line of devices (under the Megacom name) and Switch Up.
History[]
According to Sperry's website, they claim to have "engaged in the international trade of high-end yacht hardware and telephones" during their early days.[1] By 1984, they would reportedly enter the video game console business, notably also creating the Megacom brand the same year. They are known to have produced and/or sold game cartridges, typically multicarts, as well as video game accessories and replacement parts for game consoles. Outside of video game products, they are also known to have sold general consumer products, such as phone accessories.
MSX games[]
Sperry Corporation are known to be behind a number of releases of pirated MSX games on cartridge. Many of these releases use an ID format of SN-xxx, with "xxx" representing a three-digit number, and feature the Supervision "dragon" trademark more commonly associated with Dar Yar, either on the game's case or molded on the back of the cartridge shells. Aspects of these releases that are more strongly linked to Sperry include some of them featuring a "Golden Card" seal with the Megacom name printed on it[2], games released in the SN-90x series mentioning Megacom on the spine of their case and the top label of the cartridge[3], and a few releases featuring a stylized graphic of a bird - this is a trademark registered by Sperry as "Gold Bird".[4][5]
Sperry themselves publicly claimed to have worked with the Arabic company Al Alamiah in 1986 on support for the MSX in the Middle East. While this company is known to have released MSX games, it is unknown which releases Sperry were responsible for.
Multicarts[]
Sperry Corporation is only confirmed to have released one multicart, named the Mega-Top 100-in-1. It was made for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and sold under the Megacom brand name, with the cartridge having the Megacom name and the Supervision dragon trademark used by Dar Yar embossed on its shell.[6] While the cartridge's label has a list of games included printed on it, the exact contents of the multicart are unknown.
Connection to Dar Yar Electronics[]
Multicart box with both the Megacom and Dar Yar "Supervision" branding visible.
Sperry Corporation appears to have strong connections to Dar Yar Electronics, a company located in Taoyuan, Taiwan that is notable for their game console clones and pirate game cartridges. The most glaring evidence of this is both Dar Yar's "Supervision" and an older version of Sperry's "Megacom" brand names being displayed together on some pirate 72-pin NES multicart releases.[7] In addition to this, both Dar Yar and Sperry would use numeric IDs with a "SN" prefix on their products (i.e., on the back of Supervision Famicom/NES cartridges for the former and on boxes of Megacom NES multicarts for the latter). Sperry would also start using the S-shaped dragon graphic from the Supervision logo as their own general logo by 2013. They would additionally start using a version of this logo paired with the "Megacom" brand name by 2021 at the latest. Prior to these two events, Sperry would also successfully register a trademark identical to Dar Yar's "Supervision" dragon trademark in 1991, four years after Dar Yar registered it themselves, and has been actively renewed since. Despite these connections, it is unclear if Dar Yar and Sperry Corporation are directly related to each other.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ https://www.sperry.com.tw/milestone/
- ↑ https://www.generation-msx.nl/software/konami/penguin-adventure/release/873/#rel_8418
- ↑ https://www.generation-msx.nl/software/konami/f-1-spirit-the-way-to-formula-1/release/905/#rel_8565
- ↑ https://www.generation-msx.nl/software/konami/hyper-rally/release/580/#rel_11590
- ↑ https://www.generation-msx.nl/software/konami/kings-valley/release/406/#rel_7446
- ↑ https://segaretro.org/Mega_Drive_unlicensed_multi-carts_(unsorted;_others)#Mega-Top_100-in-1
- ↑ http://www.videogameobsession.com/videogame/hk/nes_multi_Gamelists.htm