Word: mattel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...industry has always been secretive and hysterical, and the advent of memory chips and voice synthesizers has not calmed things down. The designers of Simon, Marvin Glass & Associates of Chicago, refuse categorically to deal with the press. At the design department of Mattel, in California, "you knock on the door and they look at you through a little hole," according to one industry executive who has visited there. Inside, "these guys are all sitting around, and they've got little computers, and'they're writing down figures and leafing through little books, and they scratch their heads...
...visual qualities of the games will improve quickly. Bambino has a two-color display system in the works that would allow one football team to wear blue uniforms and one to wear red, for instance. TV games, overshadowed this year, should attract more interest when Mattel Electronics introduces Intellivision, a game system with realistic, multicolored graphic displays. Learning capability can be built into small computers. The costs will be higher, but if customers will pay $40 this year, they may pay $75 next year...
Comic books provide inspiration for some of this year's collection. Mattel's think tank christened a green artificial limb, definitely a best buy at $3, "Hulk Hand." An identical red limb--Spiderman Hand--is available for the same money...
...last week sprang a surprise bid to acquire Macmillan, Inc., the old-line publishing conglomerate that brought out Richard Bach's 1970 bestseller about a mythical seagull. In doing so, the big broadcaster (1978 revenues: $1.8 billion) upset merger talks that had been going on between Macmillan and Mattel, Inc., the California-based toymaker that grew big on sales of Barbie dolls but which is still less than one-third ABC's size. ABC's offer of $335 million for a controlling 55% of Macmillan's shares was just $6 million sweeter than Mattel...
...Mattel, the California toy company, is trying to hang on to the kids who have mellowed into grownups. Its Barbie doll has been joined by a line of electronic toys for adults. The $500 Intellivision, a computer that plugs into a TV set, will play roulette, compute income taxes and do estate planning. Winemakers are also preparing to reap a rich harvest as the Pepsi generation trades its aluminum pop tops for corkscrews. By 1985 domestic wine is projected to be a $6 billion industry, up from $3 billion today. "Sales of the better wines can only be described...