STEFANO ARNHOLD

“Before I graduated from school I started an internship in a company which was the largest distributor of photographic equipment in Brazil, representing many Japanese brands,” says Stefano, who joined the company in 1973 and worked there for many years.“From this company I went to work with Sharp, in Brazil, which was a Brazilian company licensed by the Japanese company. Then TecToy started to work with Sega. Probably all my life since 1973, I have [worked and had business] with Japanese companies. I’d say to Nakayama-san of Sega that we were more Japanese than they were!” As we shall see, Stefano’s experience with electronics and televisions (especially Brazil’s unusual PAL-M format) led him into videogames.

What was your first contact with videogames?

At the time Nintendo had the Game & Watch handhelds, before Mario was even famous. Also the release of the Atari 2600. My first trip to visit Nintendo was in the late Seventies, or the start of 1980. I visited them in Kyoto in order to manufacture their line of Game & Watch in Brazil.

How did you end up at TecToy?

When I was hired by Sharp in 1983, it was partially because of my knowledge on videogames. Sharp wanted to introduce in Brazil the old Atari 2600 and ended up introducing the Intellivision from Mattel. Sharp in Brazil was a huge group with electronics, banking and other activities. I worked for Sharp in the strategic planning department before I was the marketing director, and my boss there in 1987, Daniel Dazcal, he decided that he wanted to go solo, [and] he decided to create TecToy – then he invited me to join him when we started the company from zero.

You were there at the start?

I came 15 minutes later… [Daniel] was Sharp’s main vice president, and he left in March, April, something like that. It was his birthday in October [when] he told me he would be starting TecToy. When he left I told him,