Tiger Electronics Ltd.

Tiger Electronics Ltd. (also known as Tiger and Tiger Toys) was an independent American toy manufacturer best known for its handheld LCD games, Furby, Talkboy, Giga Pets, 2-XL robot, and audio games such as Brain Warp and Brain Shift. When it was an independent company, Tiger Electronics Inc., it was headquartered in Vernon Hills, Illinois. Hasbro has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1998.

Story

Gerald Rissman, Randy Rissman and Arnold Rissman founded the company in June 1978. She started with low-tech products such as phonographs and then moved on to developing portable electronic games and educational toys. Notable among these were the 2-XL robot in 1978 and the Tiger K28 talking learning computer (1984), which was sold worldwide by Kmart and other chain stores. Tiger has also had success with many simple portable electronics games such as Electronic Bowling and license-based games such as RoboCop, Terminator and Spider-Man. A hit in the early 1990s was the Talkboy portable cassette player and variable speed tape recorder (first seen in the 1992 film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York). it is followed by the Brain family of games, which includes games such as like Brain Bash Brain Warp and Brain Shift which are popular YouTube video making games along with Bop It. He also licensed the Lazer Tag brand from his inventors, Shoot the Moon Products, which was born from the remains of the Worlds of Wonder company.

The company's cash cow for most of the 1990s was their line of licensed handheld LCD games. In a 1993 article about these games, GamePro attributed their success to the following three factors:

• Efficient Tiger Licensing. Marketing director Tamara Lebowitz stated, "We read all the magazines and talk to all the studios to keep up with what's popular with the kids." As a fairly small company at the time, Tiger was able to quickly and aggressively pursue the licenses they wanted. This allowed them to release licensed games while the properties they were licensed to were still at the height of their popularity.
• Low cost per game. Portable Tiger games sold for about $20 each. In comparison, most handheld games of the time cost over $30 and required a separately sold system to play (an extra $50 or more).
• Simplified, addictive game play. While older gamers tended to find Tiger handheld games one-dimensional and boring, for kids ages five to twelve, their simple and easy-to-learn mechanics were more appealing than other video games of the time, which were often annoyingly complex and frighteningly difficult for young children.

In the fall of 1994, Tiger introduced a specialized line of their handheld LCD games called Tiger Barcodzz. These were barcode games that would read any barcode and use it to generate player character statistics. The line was a big success in Japan, where there were even reality shows where gamers competed to find the best barcodes to beat other players. Tiger released the Lights Out version around 1995. In 1997, he released a quirky fishing game called Fishing Championship in the form of a smaller rod. Another creation of the 1990s was Skip-It.

In 1995, Tiger acquired the toy division of Texas Instruments. Tiger agreed to make and sell electronic toys for Hasbro and Sega.

Merger with Hasbro

Tiger Electronics has been part of the Hasbro toy company since 1998. In 2000, Tiger was licensed to supply a variety of electronics from Yahoo! a brand name including digital cameras, webcams, and a "Hit Downloader" that made Internet music (mp3s, etc.) available through various Tiger "HitClips" players. Tiger also makes the durable iDog Interactive Music Companion, ZoomBox, a 3-in-1 portable home entertainment projector that can play DVDs and CDs and connect to most game systems, VideoNow personal video player, VCamNow digital video camera, ChatNow. a line of two-way radios aimed at children; and TVNow, a personal portable DVR player.

Products

Standalone handheld computers

Tiger is best known for its low cost handheld gaming systems with LCD screens. Each device contains a fixed image printed on a portable device that is visible through the screen. The static images then light up individually in front of a background representing symbols and objects, much like the numbers on a digital clock. In addition to releasing some of its own games, Tiger was able to obtain licenses from many of the top-selling companies of the day to sell their own versions of games, such as Capcom's Street Fighter II, Sega's Sonic 3D Blast, and Konami: Simon's Castlevania II. Quest. Tiger later introduced what they called "wrist games". They combined a digital clock with a smaller version of the Tiger handheld game.

In 1995, Tiger introduced the Super Data Blasters, a line of sports-themed portable devices. Each contained up-to-date statistics for players in a specific sport, the ability to record new sports statistics, a built-in electronic game for that sport, and typical electronic organizer features such as an address book and calculator.

In 1998, Tiger released 99X Games, a series of dot-matrix handhelds allowing for a wide variety of backgrounds and different gameplay for a single game. Although these systems ran software stored in ROM, they were dedicated consoles, much like the plug-and-play television games of the 2000s decade. Two systems running the same game can be connected with the included cable so that two players can compete against each other.

Pocket PC on cartridges

Tiger made three notable cartridge systems. The first was Quiz Wiz, a very popular interactive quiz game system. The players inserted the cartridge and played using the corresponding quiz book. The second was R-Zone. It used red LCD cartridges, very similar to Nintendo's Virtual Boy, which were projected using a backlight onto a reflective screen that covered one of the player's eyes. The third was the Game.com handheld system, which was meant to compete with Nintendo's Game Boy and Game Boy Color, as well as the Sega Game Gear and Genesis Nomad, and boasted new features such as a touch screen and limited internet connectivity. However, R-Zone and Game.com were commercial failures and drew backlash.

Furby

Hasbro, having previously shunned high-tech toys, became interested in developing the Furby. With support from Hasbro, Tiger was able to speed up the development process and bring the Furby to the shelves in time for the 1998 holiday season, during which it became a runaway hit - the "that" toy of the 1998 and 1999 seasons. Continued development of Furby-type technology led to the release of the FurReal toy line in 2003, a more modern version of the Furby toy line in 2012, and the high-tech Furby Connect.

brain family

From 1994–1999, Tiger invented the Brain Family, a line of electronic handheld audio games. In 1994, Tiger released Brain Bash. It has four purple buttons on the inside and four yellow buttons on the outside of the device. It has five game modes. The first game is called Touch Command, where an electronic voice issues a "one touch" type command, and the corresponding player must press purple and yellow.

In 1996, Tiger released Brain Warp. This game is a spherical unit with six colored pens protruding from it. There were three different versions of the Brain Warp circuit board, resulting in sound changes and differences in pitch. Two improvements were made in the blue base. Version 2.0 has a different silent sampling mode from the first version. When Hasbro re-released Brain Warp in 2002, they took the programming from version 2.0 and put it on a new circuit board with an improved speaker that reduced the volume of the device. This game is very similar to Bop It. The voice recorded for the game says a color or a number, or a sequence of colors or numbers, or both, depending on the game chosen, and the correct knob must be pointing up.

In 1998, Tiger released Brain Shift. There are six colored LEDs in this game. He is known for his distinctive low tone "Orange!" the voice heard on the last pattern color in Stick Shift and in Memory Shift and Who Shifts It? The player must use the joystick to follow voice commands. There is a memory game, and Brain Shift and Brain Warp have a code-breaking game in which the player must find a certain number of colors in sixty seconds. Some of the Brain Shift gaming devices in the game had a bad chip that caused the game to mess up audio when the battery was low, and in rare cases the in-game voice would start counting while looking through a list of numbers and skipping some.

Other

Production of toys and games for other brands

The company has become one of the most famous manufacturers of electronic toys based on a variety of licenses, including Star Trek, Star Wars, Barney & Friends, Arthur, Winnie the Pooh, Franklin, Neopets, Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, Weakest Link. , "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", "Batman Returns", "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" and "Sonic the Hedgehog".

In 1996, Tiger produced replicas of the Turbo Man doll that was featured in the 1996 holiday comedy Jingle All the Way. It retains most of the features of the film version, including the disc shooter, boomerang accessory, light and sound jetpack, and voice box. Even though five phrases are advertised in the movie, the toy actually contains only four.

boogie ball

In 1999, Tiger Electronics released an LED-lit electronic game called Boogey Ball. 2 versions of the game were released. The first version was buggy and had problems playing several games (games 2, 3 and 5). In games 2 and 3, the player automatically failed after 20 seconds. In game 5, the light patterns went in different directions and it was more difficult to play. The game also featured a loud voice but quiet background music. In version 2.0, all problems have been fixed in sound and game modes. The gameplay is similar to Pac-Man in that the player maneuvers a green LED through a maze of 30 LEDs and must either avoid (throw away) the red light or catch (catch) the yellow light. The game was known for its Austin Powers and Melle Mel style voices; the electronic voice would often say "baby". The first time I turned on the game, he said, "Oh, you turned me on baby let's boogie!" When the player failed, the game would say "Oh shit!". This game was also published by Hasbro. The game also suffered from a crash, with it freezing while playing every sound from the game, and pressing the power button would not shut down the game. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The game also suffered from a crash, with it freezing while playing every sound from the game, and pressing the power button would not shut down the game. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The game also suffered from a crash, with it freezing while playing every sound from the game, and pressing the power button would not shut down the game. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode. The loud crackling above the top of the rapid fire used to frighten people. The cause of this failure is unknown, but it may be an attempt to pass the automatic test mode.

Testing during production

Tiger Electronics and Hasbro have been known to include a hidden test mode in all of their electronic games. These test modes signal a sine or square wave as a way to test the speaker and then play all the sounds pre-programmed into the device, either manually (by pushing a button) or automatically (playing each sound). by itself). Such test modes are found in games such as Brain Warp, Brain Shift, Boogey Ball and Brain Bash, as well as board games (eg Who Wants to Be a Millionaire).