It is pretty incredible to consider the volume of arrangements and intercooperation of various manufacturers, as well as retailers in the 70's and 80's that lead to so many unique products, as well as so many clones being made. While virtually all the manufacturing was in Japan, many large established brands and smaller retailers wanting private label products alike from all over the world managed to get things like these oddball CD players done and on the market with surprisingly short lead times.
I've read anecdotes about the extensive contract manufacturing network that existed within Japan at the time, and I find it quite fascinating how even big outfits that were generally in direct competition (like Sony, Pioneer, Sansui, Marantz, Matsushita, Hitachi etc.) would get into arrangements where one of them could contract for a semi-custom (or just rebadged version) of another companies existing product so they would have a model to offer where their own internal lineup fell short.
As just some example, Sansui sourced some of their early CD players from both Yamaha and Toshiba. They sourced a Laserdisc player from Pioneer. Pioneer sourced an early portable CD player from Sony. And this sort of stuff went on all the time, especially in the 1980's
Even more interesting to me were the semi and fully customized products like the Concept gear at Pacific Stereo, Setton, MCS by JC Penney (mostly of NEC and Matsushita manufacture), Lafayette and the like, and were quite often serious products of good quality that could stand shoulder to shoulder with any of the majors of the time. It took real effort to design and get these products made, in an age where design work was much more time consuming, and international communications weren't nearly as fast or easy as they are now.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd love greater insight into how these projects came together. Most of that historical knowledge is impossible to tap though, as it was never really written about, but was all behind the scenes.