Dendy

Dendy
Type	Private
Founded	1991 (Steepler) August 1994 (Dendy)
Headquarters	Moscow, Russia
Key people	Andrey Cheglakov, founder Maxim Selivanov, founder Vladislav Undeyev, founder Rustem Ahiyarov, founder
Industry	Video games, consoles
Products	Video games consoles
Number of people	not disclosed
Website	N/A

Dendy was a video game company that was the official distributor for Nintendo, Konami, Ocean, and Acclaim products in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Steepler

Steepler was founded by Andrey Cheglakov, Maxim Selivanov, Vladislav Undeyev and Rustem Ahiyarov in 1991. It was an official distributor of Hewlett Packard products in Russia.

Famicom clones

Victor Savyuk, an acquaintance of the founders, approached Steepler with the intent to purchase unlicensed Famicom consoles from Asia to sell in Russia.

In order to stand out from the other Famicom clone consoles already on sale in Russia, it was decided that Steepler needed its own brand. The brand name Dendy was chosen, and Ivan Maximov designed the logo.

The Dendy Famicom clone, a rebranded version of TXC Corporation's Micro Genius IQ-501, was released in Russia at the end of 1992.

The Dendy was initially a success, but sales soon plateaued, so in 1993 they created a new model called the Dendy Junior, a rebranded version of the Micro Genius MG-02 which resembled the Japanese Famicom but had detachable controllers, and the Dendy Classic II, which was a rebranded version of the Micro Genius IQ-502. The original model continued to be sold as the Dendy Classic. That same year, Steepler also expanded into other CIS territories.

By the beginning of 1994, Steepler sold more than one million Dendy consoles. To save money, they decided that all Dendy consoles would be manufactured in Russia, and purchased the Tenzor instrument engineering plant in Dubna to do so.

Mega Drive clones

In 1994, Steepler began selling unlicensed Sega Mega Drive clones in Russia and CIS countries. They released a clone named Pro 16 Bit as well as a Taiwanese clone simply named High Quality.

By June 1994, Steepler had sold four thousand Sega Mega Drive clones.

Dendy

A new company named Dendy was formed in August 1994 by Steepler and Incombank after Nintendo agreed to make Dendy its official distributor in Russia and the CIS.

They continued to sell Dendy Famicom clones, but also distributed official German-manufactured versions of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy.

Closure

Steepler closed in 1996. Its closure hurt Dendy tremendously, leading to its own closure in 1998.