ABSTRACT
On February 11, 1980, the 87th annual Toy Fair opened in New York City, and some of the biggest stars of the show were a diverse array of handheld electronic games. In 1979, electronic game sales had exploded from $180 million in 1978 to $720 million, which translated into 16 million units sold. 1 Now every company in the toy business was scrambling to take a piece of the action. 2 Over 300 electronic games were displayed at the show. Mattel, which experienced great success with an update to its Football game in 1979, showcased updates to its basketball and soccer handhelds, while Coleco debuted a new series of head-to-head sports games that could be played by two people. Parker Brothers followed up its smash hit Merlin with a unit called Split Second that challenged the player to complete six different games in as short a time as possible. Milton Bradley continued to push its extremely popular Simon, the best-selling electronic game of 1979, alongside a game called Milton that featured speech. 3
