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Sega Megadrive (Japanese:メガドライブ)
was a 16-bit
video game console released by
Sega.
For information on the
North American version of the console, see:
Sega Genesis
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.
When
NEC released the
PC Engine in
Japan on
30 October
1987, it posed a threat to
Sega and
Nintendo. While NEC overall did not have much of an impact in the
Japanese market, the Megadrive initially had even less of an impact than
NEC's system did.
The Sega Megadrive was released in
Japan in
29 October
1988 for ₯21,000. The
European release was
30 November
1990 in the
United Kingdom, priced at £190
Unlike in the United States, the Japanese Megadrive was overshadowed by
the
Sega Saturn in its country. Just like its North American counterpart,
however, the European Megadrive did better than the Sega Saturn in that
locale.
The Megadrive initially competed against the 8-bit
Famicom system in
Japan and the
Nintendo Entertainment System in
Europe.
The Japanese audience was more fixated on the
Famicom. When the Megadrive started to overtake the market, the
Super Famicom came and overpowered the Megadrive in Japan. The Super
Famicom had as much as 80% of the market in that country. The Megadrive
ended up doing worse in that market than the
PC Engine did, despite its superiority over the PC Engine and the
Famicom.
The European NES market was very confusing, with different companies
handling the NES in different markets. The
Sega Master System, as well as the Megadrive had no problem excelling
in Europe. The European Megadrive outsold all other consoles, including
the
Sega Saturn. The Megadrive was supported in that locale until 1998.
The Megadrive counterpart in Europe eventually competed with Nintendo's
Super Nintendo Entertainment System, while the Japanese Megadrive
competed with the
Super Famicom, the Japanese version of the SNES.
Three add-on components had been released for the Megadrive in Japan,
and two were released for the Megadrive in Europe and Australia. The
Sega Meganet modem was only released in
Japan. The
Sega Mega-CD was released for all versions of the Megadrive worldwide.
The
Sega Super 32X came to the Japanese while the Europeans and the
Australians got the
Sega Mega Drive 32X.
The Sega Megadrive 2 was the only redesign that the Megadrive got. The
redesign reduced cost and size by consolidating chips, removing built-in
headphone jack, 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 Mega-CD, the Sega Mega-CD 2,
was made to accommodate this.
One unlikely market that the Megadrive excelled in was
Brazil. Brazil was also where the
Sega Master System lived its absolute final days, to 1998. The
Megadrive also held over until 1998 in that area.
Tec Toy was Sega's Brazilian distributor and had success with both of
those consoles. Sega had 75% of the Brazilian market.
A
Sega Master System was available for the Megadrive. 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. A newer version for the Megadrive 2 was released in Europe, but
the card port was removed. The Mega Master was a third party Master System
converter distributed by Fire and Datel in the
United Kingdom. It looked like the official Mega Drive 2 Converter,
but the pause button was on the side as a toggle switch. Card games could
not be played because of this.
Although Sega had talks about a Game Gear Converter, tentatively named
the Mega Game Gear, Sega never made one.
Versions of the Sega
Megadrive
- Sega Megadrive 1 in Japan
- Japanese-language settings
- Headphone jack
- AUX Port
- Supports Sega Mega-CD and Sega Super 32X
- Had a cartridge lock
- Gloss Black Finish
- On the circular molding is the text 'High Grade Multi Purpose
Intelligent Terminal'. At the bottom of the circle is a purple square
section.
- Cooling vents are located on the left side.
- 'Sega Megadrive' is printed in white on the lower right of the
console.
- The reset button and start button on the joypad are blue.
- Sega Megadrive 1 in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand
- Converted to display Pal 50HZ Signal
- English-language settings
- Cannot play Japanese Megadrive games due to shape of cartridge and
console (thought adaptaders were sold to play Japanese games in the
european model).
- Cartridge lock removed
- The text 'High Definition Graphics·Stereo Sound' located behind
cartridge port.
- The reset button and the start button are white.
- Sega Megadrive 1 in
Asia (variant to European Megadrive and often mistaken for a
Japanese Megadrive)
- No text printed around circle
- Larger '16-Bit' logo used
- 'Start' and 'Reset' button are blue
- Identical to European Megadrive with PAL Output
- Sega Megadrive 2 in Japan
- New squared shape
- No headphone jack
- 1 Custom multi output for picture and sound
- Red Coloured flaps on Cartridge Port
- The text 'High Grade Multi Purpose Intelligent Terminal' located
behind cartridge port.
- Packaged with 6-button controller standard.
- No power LED
- Sega Megadrive 2 in Europe
- New squared shape
- No headphone jack
- AV Port switched to 1 Custom multi output for picture and sound
(Previously, only Mono sound was used, as the Stereo Sound came to the
headphone jack)
- Push Button Power Switch
- Power port smaller, different AC Adapter used
- RF Out port removed
- Auto-switching RF Lead Included
- Wondermega (named Xeye for the North American Release) - A combined
Megadrive and Mega-CD by
JVC - Never released in Europe
- Improved sound capabilities
- MIDI Connexions
- 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.
- Later Japanese pack had a platform game called 'Wonderdog' by
Core.
- 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.
- Sega Mega LD (Japan)/Multimega (Europe) (named CDX in North America)
- A Megadrive and Mega-CD console with portable CD Player abilities,
aimed at the more affluent market. The British release came at a
whopping £350.00.
- 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.
- 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 available. 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.
- Mega Jet - see
Sega Mega Jet
- 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 PC Engine games and the karaoke.
- Terra Drive (Mega PC in Europe) - A personal computer that allows a
user to play Megadrive games and to use normal computer applications.
The Terra Drive was released in Japan with development tools, but Sega
was cooperating with a different company in that case. The (equivalent
to) $3000 dollar price tag did not make the system attractive to the
Japanese. The Mega PC was released by Amstrad in Europe.
- The Terra Drive/Mega PC was a 386xs running at 25Mhz. It had 1MB
RAM and a 40MB
IBM Compatible Hard Disk Drive.
- It was released in the UK in 1993 and the casing colour was
changed from dark gray to cream.
- The Terra Drive/Mega PC can also be used with a Mega CD.
- The Mega Plus was an updated version of the Mega CD. It used a
486, with a 33Mhz and 4MB RAM.
- MSX - A name for two machines released only in Arab countries by a
company named Universal. The machines were capable of playing Megadrive
cartridges.
- The A330 MSX had a cartridge port on the top of the machine. It
has 'Painting', 'Calendar', 'Arabic Writing', and 'English Writing' as
its programs.
- The AX990 had 50 programs. They are likely to be an unofficial
multicart or other MSX programs.
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
- Additional sound chip: 4 channel
Texas Instruments PSG (Programmable Sound Generator)
SN76489
- Palette: 512 Colours
- Colour RAM: 64 x 9 KBit
- Onscreen colours: 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 - Megadrive 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 Mega-CD
- 2 nine pin controller ports in the front of the machine.
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