Coleco Industries, Inc. is an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company . It became a very successful toy company in the 1980s, known for its massive version of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and video game consoles, Coleco Telstar and ColecoVision special consoles. While the company disappeared in 1988 as a result of bankruptcy, the Coleco brand was revived in 2005, and remains active to this day.
Video Coleco
Company
Coleco Industries, Inc. started life in 1932 as The Connecticut Leather Company. Initially the business was supplying leather and "shoe findings" to the shoe workshop. Shoe findings are inventory and equipment for shoe workshops. The company then (1938) branched out into selling rubber boots. With the advent of World War II, the demand for basic supplies produced by the company dramatically increased demand. By the end of the war the company was much bigger and on stable financial ground and had branched out into new and used shoe machines, hat cleansers and even marble shine polishers.
In the early 1950s, and thanks to Maurice Greenberg's son, Leonard Greenberg, the company has diversified further and made leather straps and leather craft tools. In 1954, at the New York Toy Fair, leather moccasin was chosen as Child Guidance Prestige Toy, and Connecticut Leather Company decided to wholeheartedly enter the toy business. In 1956, Leonard read about the emerging technology, the formation of a plastic vacuum, which led the company to become very successful, producing a variety of plastic toys and a huge wading pool.
In 1961 the leather and leather discovery section of the business was sold, and Connecticut Leather Company became Coleco Industries, Inc. On January 9, 1962, Coleco went public, offering shares worth $ 5.00 per share.
In 1963, the company acquired Kestral Corporation in Springfield, Massachusetts, a manufacturer of inflatable vinyl pools and toys. This has led Coleco to become the world's largest producer of ground swimming pools.
In 1966, the company had grown so massively that Leonard persuaded his brother Arnold Greenberg to join the company. Further acquisitions were added to the company's growth, Playtime Products (1966) and Eagle Toys of Canada (1968). In the late 1960s, Coleco runs ten manufacturing facilities and has a new headquarters in Hartford, Connecticut.
The 1970s was a difficult decade for Coleco and although the sale was past the $ 100 million mark. When Coleco was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1971, its sales increased to $ 48.6 million. In 1972 Coleco entered the snowmobile market through acquisitions, but bad snowfall and market conditions led to disappointing sales and profits.
Under CEO Arnold Greenberg, the company entered the video game console business with Telstar in 1976. Dozens of companies introduced the game system that year after Atari's successful Pong console. Almost all of these new games are based on "Pong-on-a-chip" General Instruments. However, General Instruments has underestimated the demand, and there is a severe shortage. Coleco was the first to order, and was one of the few companies that received orders in full. Although custom game consoles do not last long in the market, their initial order allows Coleco to break even.
Coleco continues to work well in electronics. The company is transitioning into a handheld electronic gaming, a market popularized by Mattel. The first hit was Electronic Quarterback. Coleco produces two very popular line-ups, "head to head" series of two players' sports matches (Football, Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey) and Mini-Arcade series from licensed arcade video titles such as Donkey Kong and Pac-Man . The third line of educational handhelds is also produced and includes an Electronic Learning Machine, Lil Genius, Digits, and a trivia game called Quiz Wiz. Launched in 1982, their first four Mini-Arcade tables, for Pac-Man, Galaxian, Donkey Kong and Frogger , sold about three million units a year. Among these, 1.5 million units were sold for Pac-Man only. In 1983, he released three more Mini-Arcades: to Ms. Pac-Man , Donkey Kong Junior , and Zaxxon .
Coleco returned to the video game console market in 1982 with the launch of ColecoVision. While the system is quite popular, selling 500,000 units for two years, Coleco fenced the stakes on video games by introducing a line of ROM cartridges for Atari 2600 and Intellivision. It also introduced the Gemini Coleco, a clone of the popular Atari 2600.
When the video game business began to explode in 1983, it was clear that video game consoles were being replaced by home computers. Coleco's strategy is to introduce Coleco Adam's home computer, both as a stand-alone system and as an expansion module to ColecoVision. This attempt failed, in part because Adams was often unreliable, and partly because the release of computers coincided with the home computer industry crashing. Coleco withdrew from electronics in early 1985.
Also in 1983, Coleco released the highly successful Cabbage Patch Kids series. Flush with success, Coleco bought Selchow and Righter besieged in 1986, Scrabble, Parcheesi and Trivial Pursuit producers, sales dropped dramatically, leaving Selchow & amp; Get ready with a warehouse full of unsold games. The purchase price is $ 75 million. That same year, Coleco introduced an ALF plush based on the hairy alien character who owns his own television series at the time, as well as the talking version and the "Storytelling ALF" cassette-play doll. Selchow & amp; Righter, Adam's destructive computer, and the fading public frenzy with Cabbage Patch dolls, all contributed to Coleco's financial decline. In 1988, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The reorganized Coleco sells all North American assets and diverts thousands of jobs to foreign countries, closes factories in Amsterdam, New York and other cities. In 1988, Canada based on SLM Action Sports Inc. bought Coleco's pool and snow stuff division. In 1989, Hasbro bought most of Coleco's remaining product lines.
Maps Coleco
Brand
Coleco as a brand name has been owned by several entities since it was created in 1961 by Coleco Industries, Inc.
In 2005, River West Brands, now Dormitus Brands, a Chicago-based brand revitalization company, reintroduces the Coleco brand into the market. In late 2006, the company introduced Coleco Sonic, a handheld system containing twenty Sega Master System and Sega Game Gear games. In 2014, River West Brands established a subsidiary of Coleco Holdings for their Coleco brand projects.
In December 2015, Coleco Holdings announced the development of Coleco Chameleon, a new cartridge-based video game system; in fact, a re-branding of the controversial Retro VGS console, whose Indiegogo campaign failed to secure funding when it expired in early November 2015, with only $ 63,546 raised from its $ 1.95 million goal. In a press release, it was determined that the system would be able to play new and classic games in 8, 16, and 32-bit styles. The release for this system was announced around early 2016, with demonstrations at Toy Fair New York in February. However, some critics suggest that the prototype failed to achieve its developmental goals and is nothing more than the Super NES SNS-101 model motherboard in the Atari Jaguar case. Then a mock image of the prototype posted by AtariAge shows the device utilizing the CCTV capture card in place of the motherboard. After Retro VGS failed to produce a fully working prototype, Coleco Holdings withdrew from engagement with Retro VGS, ending the project.
See also
- ColecoVision
- Coleco ADAM
- Coleco Gemini
- Electronic Quarterback
- Sekteurs
- Starcom: U.S. Space Power
- Telstar
References
External links
- Articles in The Dot Eaters - History of Coleco and ColecoVision products.
- www.colecomuseum.com - Dedicated to Coleco collections.
- ColecoVision Zone - Full archive of photos and documents.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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