Cirsa-Unidesa

Cirsa-Unidesa was a Spanish pinball manufacturing venture that emerged from Cirsa (Compañía Internacional del Recreativo S.A.), a gaming and leisure company founded on October 5, 1978, in Terrassa, near Barcelona, by entrepreneur Manuel Lao Hernández. While Cirsa primarily focused on slot machines and gambling devices, it briefly entered the pinball market in the mid-1980s by leveraging its subsidiary Unidesa (Universal de Desarrollos Electrónicos S.A.). Through Unidesa, Cirsa acquired licenses from Williams Electronics, allowing it to produce local versions of successful Williams pinball titles such as Space Shuttle (1986), High Speed (1987), and PIN·BOT (1987). These machines were assembled with imported kits and adapted for Spain’s amusement arcades, which faced high import duties on foreign-made equipment at the time.

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Although Cirsa-Unidesa is best remembered for its licensed adaptations, it also created original pinball machines that showcased the company’s own design efforts, including Mephisto (1987) and White Force (1987). These titles featured solid-state technology and thematic elements on par with contemporary global offerings. By 1989, however, Cirsa decided to discontinue its pinball manufacturing to concentrate on more profitable core businesses, specifically casino operations and slot machine production. In total, Cirsa-Unidesa’s pinball output lasted only a few years, but it remains a noteworthy example of Spain’s contributions to the global pinball landscape.