Bergsala

Overview

Bergsala is the distributor and agent for Nintendo in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, and are also responsible for the distribution of Pokémon Trading Card Game products in Norway and Finland. Their headquarters are located in Kungbacka, Sweden. 
 

History

Bergsala was founded in Kungsbacka, Sweden by Owe Bergsten, Pierre Sandsten and Lars-Göran Larsson in 1976. The name "Bergsala" is a combination of the three founders surnames. During the first years, Bergsten and Larsson imported electronic products that were sold in a small store in Kungsbacka. 
 
In 1981, during a trip to the far east, Owe Bergsten purchases a portable game to keep himself occupied during the flight home. The game was a title in the Game & Watch series of products called Fire. The three owners thought that the product had potential, and contacted Nintendo via telex to investigate the possibilities to distribute Game & Watch in Sweden. After some time, Nintendo replied that the company Alga AB owned the rights to distribute Nintendos products in Sweden. 
 
Before long, Bergsala notices that Alga didn't intend to import any Game & Watch products in Sweden. Because of that, Owe Bergsten decided to travel to Kyoto, Japan to convince Nintendo to give them a shot. Nintendo accepts. Several months passed before Bergsala managed to get their first order för Game & Watch, but after that, the interest for the strange series of portable games started to snowball. Bergsala ordered more copies, and before long, they managed to convince Nintendo to make them responsible for the distribution of Nintendo products in Norway, Finland and Denmark as well. 
 
The money from Game & Watch enabled Bergsala to import more products from other manufacturers, none of them video game related. In 1983-1984, the combination of shrinking Game & Watch sales and a number of failed ventures resulted in severe financial problems for the company. At the same time, Nintendo begins to unveil their new console, the Nintendo Family Computer, for business partners. Bergsala tried to convince Nintendo to let them release the Famicom in Sweden, but in the end, Nintendo decided to release it in North America first. Thanks to revenue from sales of other video game systems like the Vectrex and the Intellivision, Bergsala managed to keep afloat until the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in September 1986. 
 
After a few months, Bergsala had sold 800,000 NES consoles in a country with 9,000,000 people. Since then, Bergsala has distributed every Nintendo console (except Virtual Boy) in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway.