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Sega Genesis was a 16-bit
video game console released in
North America. It was successor to the
Sega Master System and the rival of the
Super Nintendo Entertainment System during the
16-bit era.
For information on the console in its
European,
Asian,
Australian,
Japanese, and
Brazilian releases, see
Sega Megadrive
16-Bit personal machines like the
Commodore Amiga and the
Atari ST, as well as 16-Bit arcade machines, were outpacing the 8-bit
videogame consoles. Another problem was that
Nintendo had 95% of the
North American videogame market, and 92% of
Japan's videogame market;
Nintendo's 8-bit and 16-bit machines were not that successful in
Europe.
Sega knew the
Sega Master System was not going to make it in North America and
Japan, so they decided to make a new console.
Since the System 16 arcade games that Sega was making got very popular,
Hayou Nakayama, then Sega's CEO, decided to make their new system a
16-Bit one. The final design worked great, and so they used three new
arcade boards, being the
Megatech,
Megaplay, and the
System C. Any of the games made for these systems could work on their
new console.
The first name Sega thought of for their console was the MK-1601, but
Sega decided to use "Sega
Megadrive" as the name. "Mega" had the connotation of superiority, and
"Drive" had the connotation of speed and power. They went with that name
for the
Japanese,
European,
Asian, and
Australian versions of the console.
However, "Megadrive" was trademarked in the United States, so Sega
chose the name "Genesis" in that area, since "Genesis" supposedly marked
the beginning of a new age in videogames.
In 1987, Sega announced their
US
release date and stated that their own console was the first true 16-bit
console, and that the
TurboGrafx 16 wasn't.
The Genesis was released in the
United States in
January 9,
1989 in
New York, New York and
Los Angeles, California only. It sold for around $200 at launch and
was to become Sega's most successful console. The rest of the country got
it on
September 15 of the same year. By then, the price was down to $190.
The Genesis initially competed against the 8-bit
Nintendo Entertainment System, but although it had superior graphics
and sound, had a hard time overcoming Nintendo's ubiquitous presence in
the consumer's home. Sega of America competed by focusing on a slightly
older user base, with such titles as
Altered Beast and the
Phantasy Star series. People were wowed by the power of the graphics
that the Genesis had. The
TurboGrafx 16, which had been released six months earlier, had been
poorly marketed in
North America, so it wasn't a threat in that market.
Some felt there were too many arcade ports in the Genesis's library,
and that there wasn't a "killer app", but third party companies such as
Electronic Arts (The Immortal), and
Capcom (Strider)
kept the console alive.
Eventually, the Genesis's main competition was to become Nintendo's
16-bit
Super Nintendo, over which it had a head start in terms of user base
and title numbers. Nintendo knew that Sega was eating up their market, so
Nintendo released the SNES. The Genesis continued to hold on to a healthy
fan base composed significantly of
RPG fans and sports games fans, and the release of
Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 began to threaten Nintendo's up-to-then
stranglehold on the number one console position in the USA. Sonic was
released since Sega needed a better mascot than
Alex Kidd, and they also needed a "killer app". This sparked the
greatest console war in North American video gaming history. By 1992, Sega
had 55% Share in the North American video game market.
A
Sega Master System converter was availible for the Genesis. The
Powerbase converter is on top of the console and plugs into the cartridge
port. On the Master System, the pause button was on the front. All Master
System accessories, including the light gun and 3D Glasses, can be used
for this converter.
The release of the highly-anticipated
Sonic the Hedgehog 2, coinciding with a rather vicious ad campaign
barbed at Nintendo, propelled the Genesis into its heyday, outselling the
Super Nintendo for the first time since the SNES's release.
Arguably, the greatest moments for the Genesis lay in the years
1992 and
1993. The
Sega CD (North American version of
Sega Mega-CD) once again made Sega outdo Nintendo in the "greatest
technology title". Also, a swarm of third party companies were making
games for the Genesis. However, Sega started to make some very bad
decisions after those glory days.
There was also a redesign of the Genesis console itself, the Sega
Genesis 2, which reduced cost and size by consolidating chips, and
integrated stronger region encoding (which broke compatibility with some
older games.) The original console itself went through innumerable
revisions, unknown to most users save the ones who owned one of the very
first consoles, which had trouble playing a few of the newer games. A new
version of the Sega CD, the Sega CD 2, was made to accommodate this.
The
Sega Genesis 32X (Sega
Super 32X in Japan and
Sega Mega 32X in Europe) came out, but was even more so of a
disappointment than the Sega CD. This ruined Sega's integrity, and the
reputation would ultimately kill Sega's console business.
Because of the failures of the Sega CD and 32X, the lack of
advertising, and the disputes between
Sega of America and
Sega of Japan, things were grim by 1994. Sega had a bad image not just
from those issues, but also violence issues surrounding the
Mortal Kombat games released on the Genesis. The Genesis version
outsold the
SNES version 4 to 1, because the Sega version had uncensored violence,
unlike the Nintendo counterpart. However, people became worried over the
level of violence in this and other Sega videogames. Sega introduced the
Videogames Rating Council, or VRC, which helped, but to an
insignificant degree.
The market share dived from 65% to 35% within the course of a year.
More woes came with the announcement of the
Sony Playstation in 1995, and the earlier announcement of
Project Atlantis, which later became the
Nintendo 64. Sega made another blunder when it stopped support of the
Genesis in favor of the
Sega Saturn in 1996. People decided to play the Playstation and
Nintendo 64 instead.
A portable version of the system called the
Sega Nomad was released probably too late to ever be successful,
though it played the same cartridges as the home console (with some
notable incompatibilities.) Sega's successor to the Genesis was the
Saturn.
Although Sega had talks about a Game Gear Converter, tentatively named
the Mega Game Gear, they never made one.
In 1997,
Majesco announced that they wanted to make a budget version of the
Genesis. In 1998, Majesco released the "Sega Genesis 3" for $50, which
only came in North America.
There were also a number of Genesis clones (see below).
Overall, the Genesis did fairly well in North America because of its
arcade ports, sports titles, and platform games. While it did leave its
mark on gaming history, it lost the console war by a slight margin.
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Versions of the Sega Genesis
- Sega Genesis 1
- New name (Since "Megadrive" was trademarked in the
United States)
- English-language settings
- Headphone jack
- AUX Port
- Supports
Sega CD and
Sega 32X
- Cartridge lock removed
- Larger "16-Bit" logo and a large "Genesis" logo is printed in
front of cartridge port.
- Reset button and start button on Joypad are now white
- Sega Genesis 2
- New squared shape
- No headphone jack
- A/V Port changed to 1 Custom multi output for picture and sound
(Older model only emitted Mono sound, as Stereo came to the headphone
jack)
- Push button power switch
- Sega Genesis 3 by Majesco
- Xeye (named Wondermega for Japanese release) - A combined Megadrive
and Mega-CD by
JVC
- Improved sound capabilities
- MIDI Connections
- 2 Microphone Inputs
- SVHS Connector
- Packaged with a CD called "Game Garden" that had "Flicky" a (quiz
game) and "Pyramid" (a puzzle game.) The CD is compatible with CDG (CD
and Graphics) enabled CD Players.
- Supported the "Wonder CD" pheripheral that allows someone to
create music and connect to MIDI-enabled devices.
- Supported a music keyboard called the "Piano Player" that allowed
you to create music and learn to use the keyboard.
- Later given a redesign with a softer, more curved look. Some of
the extra features were removed, and the joypads were remodeled infra
red joypads.
- CDX (named Sega Mega LD in Japan and Multimega in Europe) - A
Genesis and Sega CD console with portable CD Player abilities, aimed at
the more affluent market.
- No built-in screen.
- Could double as a portable CD Player. CD Control buttons (Play,
Stop, et al)are on the front of the console. A backlit LCD provided
the track number. An extra outline port was provided for stereo
equipment.
- Charged by 2 AA batteries that can only run the CD Player. The
unit must be plugged in to play video games.
- Nomad - see
Sega Nomad
- Megatech - An arcade machine that featured 10 interchangeable
Megadrive games in an arcade style cabinet.
- The games were supplied on a Japanese Megadrive cart, although
they are slighty heavier.
- First released in 1989 with some of the best titles at the time,
such as Thunderforce II, Altered Beast, Tetris, Last Battle, Space
Harrier 2, and Golden Axe.
- Games could be changed at any time, and more titles, such as
Sonic the Hedgehog, were made availible. The games were identical
to their original counterparts, and the cheats also worked.
- Games were supplied by a Japanese-shaped Megadrive cart, although
slightly heavier. The labels were silver and red and only had "Megatech"
printed on them. These carts are not compatible with a regular
Megadrive/Genesis due to the extra information on them stored to run
the second monitor, a different length edge connector, number of pins,
pinouts, and spacing.
- A second, smaller 9-inch monitor is located at the top of the
cabinet. It displayed instructions for each of the games. The user
pays to play for a certain length of time. When time was starting to
run out, the screen flashed green to notify the user that additional
credits are needed should he or she want to play more of that game.
- Laseractive - A laser disc player from Pioneer that can plug in
modules. One of these modules allow users to play Megadrive and Mega-CD
games. It can display Megadrive graphics over streamed video from
compatible laser discs.
- The Mega LD format only had a handful of games using that format.
- 3D Glasses have been produced for compatible discs.
- Other modules could play the
TurboGrafx 16 games and the karaoke.
Technical Specifications
- CPU: 16-Bit
Motorola
M68000 16 bit processor running at 7.61Mhz
- Sound CPU:
Zilog
Z80a running at 3.58 MHz (not present in Model MK-1631)
- RAM: 64 Kilobytes
- ROM: 1 MBytes (8-MBIT)
- Video RAM: 64 Kbytes
- Graphics: VPD (Video Display Processor) dedicated VDP for playfield
and sprite control
- 3 Planes, 2 Scrolling Playfields, 1 Sprite Plane
- Main sound Chip:
Yamaha
YM2612 6 channel FM, PC format name
.GYM
- Additional sound chip: 4 channel
Texas Instruments PSG (Programmable Sound Generator)
TI 76489
- Palette: 512 Colors
- Color RAM: 64 x 9 KBit
- Onscreen colors: 64
- Maximum onscreen sprites: 80
- Pixel Resolution: 320 x 224, 40 x 28 text display mode
- Signal/Noise Ratio: 14 db
- Sound RAM: 8 Kbytes
- Outputs:
- Separate R.F aerial and R.G.B outputs
- (AUX connector - Genesis 1 only)
- Stereo headphone jack (Original Model only)
- 9 pin EXT port (Early original model only)
- Expansion port on the bottom right hand side for
Sega CD
- 2 nine pin controller ports in the front of the machine.
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