The logo for the "Dendy" Entertainment Console by Ivan Maximov.

“Dendy” is a Taiwanese hardware clone of the Nintendo Entertainment System that became the dominant gaming console in Russia between 1992 and 1996. It was sold under the auspices of Steepler Ltd., a Moscow-based IT company established in late 1990, and was represented by a popular elephant mascot created by animator Ivan Maximov. Dendy sold between 1.5 and 6 million units, becoming a household name in Russia. For many Russians, the console became an initiation into the international hobby of gaming at time when the national experience with ludic media was limited to a thin selection of board and arcade games. Dendy remained independent from Nintendo until 1994, when the Russian company signed an agreement that forbade it from supporting Sega games—whereas it had previously carried some of the most popular titles from both of these competing platforms.

The Dendy’s versatility dovetailed with a peculiar disregard for the norms that structured the presentation of games in the West. For example, whereas the NES sold in the United States alongside individual cartridges for games like Super Mario Bros (1985) or Duck Hunt (1984), the game cartridge included in the Dendy console box, and the one players would certainly encounter as their first game, contained totally disparate levels from various games arranged like a data archive in a numerical list. Thus, #1 on the starter cartridge might be Mario, while #2 might be Duck Hunt, and #3 Mario again. Consequently, players received these games without troubling themselves over plot. In place of this convention, the console revealed the underlying digital architecture rather than obfuscating it under the phantasmagoria of the game’s narrative.

The Dendy also relied on the rapid proliferation of unofficial and hacked cartridges sold at public markets. Whatever its flaws, the Dendy was undoubtedly influential, producing an early Russian gaming culture that emphasized modding and piracy. Dendy even had a Russian assembly factory, in the town of Dubna north of Moscow. Eventually, however, Nintendo’s increasing encroachment on the Dendy’s piratical business model, and their insistence that Dendy properly license games, as well as the proliferation of next generation consoles like Playstation, led to the company’s demise. However, the culture of modding and piracy the Dendy had fostered remained vital, shifting to PC games in the absence of a supportive console.