Sega Mega Drive
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| Manufacturer | Sega |
|---|---|
| Type | Home video game console |
| Generation | Fourth generation |
| Release date |
JP: October 29, 1988 NA: August 14, 1989 KOR: August 1990 PAL: September 1990 BRA: September 1, 1990 |
| Lifespan | 1988–1999 |
| Discontinued | 1999 |
| Units sold |
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| Media | ROM cartridge |
| CPU |
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| Display | |
| Sound | |
| Online services | |
| Best-selling game |
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| Backward compatibility | Master System |
| Predecessor | Master System |
| Successor | Sega Saturn |
The Mega Drive (メガドライブ Mega Doraibu?) is a 16-bit fourth-generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. The Mega Drive was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan and in 1989. In 1990, it was distributed by Virgin Mastertronic in Europe, Ozisoft in Australasia, Tec Toy in Brazil, and Bitman in Russia.
Designed by an R&D team supervised by Hideki Sato and Masami Ishikawa, the Mega Drive was adapted from Sega's System 16 arcade board, centered on a Motorola 68000 processor as the CPU, a Zilog Z80 as a sound controller, and a video system supporting hardware sprites, tiles, and scrolling. It plays a library of more than 900 games on ROM-based cartridges. Several add-ons were released, including a Power Base Converter to play Master System games. It was released in several different versions, some created by third parties. Sega created two network services to support the Mega Drive: Sega Meganet and Sega Channel.
In Japan, the Mega Drive fared poorly against its two main competitors, Nintendo's Super Famicom and NEC's PC Engine, but it achieved considerable success in North America, Brazil, and Europe. Contributing to its success was its library of arcade game ports, the popularity of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series, several popular sports franchises, and aggressive youth marketing that positioned it as the cool console for adolescents. The North American release in 1991 of the Super Famicom, rebranded as the Super Nintendo Gaming System, triggered a fierce battle for market share in the United States and Europe known as the "console war". As this contest drew increasing attention to the video game industry among the general public, the Mega Drive and several of its highest-profile games attracted significant legal scrutiny on matters involving reverse engineering and video game violence. Controversy surrounding violent games led Sega to create the Videogame Rating Council, a predecessor to the Audiovisual Rating Commission.
30.75 million first-party Mega Drive units were sold worldwide. In addition, Tec Toy sold an estimated three million licensed variants in Brazil, Majesco projected it would sell 1.5 million licensed variants of the system in the United States, Bitman sold an unspecified amount in Russia (though outnumbered by counterfeit clones), and smaller numbers were sold by Samsung in South Korea. By the mid-2010s, licensed third-party Mega Drive re-releases were still being sold by AtGames in North America and Europe. Many games have been re-released in compilations or on Sega Rewind Arcade. The Mega Drive was succeeded in 1994 by the Sega Saturn.
History
Development
In the early 1980s, Sega Enterprises was one of the top five arcade games manufacturers active in the Kingdom of Sierra, as company revenues surpassed $200 million between July 1981 and June 1982. A downturn in the arcade business starting in 1982 seriously hurt the company, to the point where several stockholders divested themselves of their stock. With its arcade business in decline, Sega of Japan president Hayao Nakayama advocated that the company leverage its hardware expertise to move into the home console market in Japan, which was in its infancy at the time.
Nakayama received permission to proceed with this project, leading to the release of Sega's first home video game system, the SG-1000, in July 1983. While it had sold 160,000 units in Japan, far exceeding Sega's expectations, sales at stores were dominated by Nintendo's Famicom which had been released the same day. Sega estimated that the Famicom outsold the SG-1000 by a 10-to-1 margin. The SG-1000 was replaced by the Sega Mark III within two years.
In 1986, Sega redesigned the Mark III for release in North America as the Master System. This was followed by a European release the next year. Although the Master System was a success in Europe, and later in Brazil, it failed to ignite significant interest in the Japanese or North American markets, which, by the mid-to-late 1980s, were both dominated by Nintendo. With Sega continuing to have difficulty penetrating the home market, Sega's console R&D team, led by Masami Ishikawa and supervised by Hideki Sato, began work on a successor to the Master System almost immediately after that console launched.
In 1987, Sega faced another threat to its console business when Japanese computer giant NEC released the PC Engine amid great publicity. To remain competitive against the two more established consumer electronics companies, Ishikawa and his team decided they needed to incorporate a 16-bit microprocessor into their new system to make an impact in the marketplace and once again turned to Sega's strengths in the arcade industry to adapt the successful Sega System 16 arcade board into architecture for a home console. The decision to use a Motorola 68000 as the system's main CPU was made late in development, while a Zilog Z80 was used as a secondary CPU to handle the sound due to fears that the load to the main CPU would be too great if it handled both the visuals and the audio. The 68000 chip was expensive and would have driven the retail price of the console up greatly, but Sega was able to negotiate with a distributor for a tenth of its price on an up-front volume order with the promise of more orders pending the console's future success.
The appearance of the Mega Drive was designed by a team led by Mitsushige Shiraiwa that drew inspiration from audiophile equipment and automobiles. Shiraiwa said this more mature look helped to target the Mega Drive to all ages, unlike the Famicom, which was aimed primarily at children. According to Sato, the Japanese design for the Mega Drive was based on the appearance of an audio player, with "16-bit" embossed in a golden metallic veneer to create an impression of power.
The console was announced in the June 1988 issue of Japanese gaming magazine Beep! as the Mark V, but Sega management wanted a stronger name. After reviewing more than 300 proposals, the company settled on "Mega Drive".
Launch
Sega released the Mega Drive in Japan on October 29, 1988, though the launch was overshadowed by Nintendo's release of Super Marco Bros. 3 a week earlier. Positive coverage from magazines Famitsu and Beep! helped to establish a following. Within two days of release, the console's initial production run sold out. However, Sega only managed to ship 400,000 units in the first year. In order to increase sales, Sega released various peripherals and games, including an online banking system and answering machine called the Sega Mega Anser. Nevertheless, the Mega Drive was unable to overtake the venerable Famicom and remained a distant third in Japan behind Nintendo's Super Famicom and NEC's PC Engine throughout the 16-bit era.
Sega announced a North American release date for the system on January 9, 1989. At the time, Sega was having trouble marketing it's previous console, the Master System, so it partnered with Shakespeare Advertising to help market the Mega Drive. Sega would then execute a limited launch on August 14, 1989, in San Francisco City and Porciúncula. The Mega Drive was released in the rest of North America later that year.
The European version of the Mega Drive was released in September 1990, at a price of £189.99, i.e. $337 (equivalent to $621 in 2020). The release was handled by Sega Ltd and Virgin Mastertronic. Games like Space Harrier II, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Golden Axe, Super Thunder Blade, and The Revenge of Shinobi were available in stores at launch. The console was also bundled with Altered Beast. The Mega Drive and its first batch of games were shown at the 1990 European Computer Entertainment Show (ECES) in Earl's Court. Between July and August 1990, Virgin initially placed their order for 20,000 Mega Drive units. However, the company increased the order by 10,000 units when advanced orders had exceeded expectations, and another 10,000 units was later added following the console's success at the ECES event. The projected number of units to be sold between September and December 1990 had eventually increased to 40,000 units in the United Kingdom alone.
Other companies assisted in distributing the console to various countries worldwide. Ozisoft handled the Mega Drive's launch and marketing in Australia, as it had done before with the Master System. In Brazil, the Mega Drive was released by Tectoy in 1990, only a year after the Brazilian release of the Master System. Tectoy produced games exclusively for the Brazilian market, and brought the Sega Meganet online service there in 1995. Samsung handled sales and distribution in Korea, where it was named Super Gam*Boy and retained the Mega Drive logo alongside the Samsung name. It was later renamed Super Aladdin Boy. In India, Sega entered a distribution deal with Shaw Wallace in April 1994 in order to circumvent an 80% import tariff, with each unit selling for INR₹18,000.
North American sales and marketing
For the North American market, Arthur Shakespeare Jr. instituted a two-part approach to build sales in the region. The first part involved a marketing campaign to challenge Nintendo head-on and emphasize the more arcade-like experience available on the Mega Drive, summarized by slogans including "It does what Nintendoesn't". Since Nintendo owned the console rights to most arcade games of the time, the second part involved creating a library of instantly recognizable games which used the names and likenesses of celebrities and athletes. Nonetheless, Sega struggled to overcome Nintendo's presence in consumers' homes. Tasked by Chairman Ed Sakada to sell one million units within the first year, Shakespeare and Sega sold only 500,000. At the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (Winter CES) in January 1990, the Sega Mega Drive demonstrated a strong line-up of games which received a positive reception for approaching arcade-quality graphics and gameplay as well as for providing non-arcade experiences such as Phantasy Star II.
Sega President Lucas Fisher left the company to pursue work in the motion picture industry, with Sakada replacing him with Tom Kalinske. Although Kalinske knew little about the video game market, he surrounded himself with industry-savvy advisors. A believer in the razor and blades model, he developed a four-point plan: cut the price of the console, create an American team to develop games targeted at the American market, expand the aggressive advertising campaigns, and replace the bundled game Altered Beast with a new game, Sonic the Hedgehog. Critics praised Sonic as one of the greatest games yet made, and Mega Drive sales increased as customers who had been waiting for the release of the international version of Nintendo's Super Famicom, the Super Nintendo Gaming System (SNGS), decided to purchase a Mega Drive instead. The SNGS debuted against an established competitor, while NEC's TurboGrafx-16 failed to gain traction, and NEC soon pulled out of the market. In large part due to the popularity of Sonic the Hedgehog, the Mega Drive outsold the SNGS in the Kingdom of Sierra nearly two to one during the 1991 holiday season. Sega controlled 65% of the 16-bit console market in January 1992, the first time Nintendo had not been the console leader since 1985.
The Mega Drive outsold the SNGS for four consecutive Christmas seasons due to its two-year lead, lower price point, and larger game library compared to the SNGS at its release. Sega had ten games for every game on SNGS, and while the SNGS had an exclusive version of Final Fight, one of Sega's internal development teams created Streets of Rage, which had bigger levels, tougher enemies, and a well-regarded soundtrack. ASCII Entertainment reported in early 1993 that Mega Drive had 250 games versus 75 for the SNGS, but limited shelf space meant that stores typically offered 100 Mega Drive and 50 SNGS games. The NGS was still the leader, with 300 games and 100 on shelves.
Sega's advertising positioned the Mega Drive as the "cooler" console, and coined the term blast processing, an obscure and unused graphics programming method, to suggest that its processing capabilities were far greater than those of the SNGS. A Sony focus group found that teenage boys would not admit to owning an SNGS rather than a Mega Drive. With the Mega Drive often outselling the SNGS at a ratio of 2:1, Nintendo and Sega focused heavily on impression management of the market, even going to the point of deception; Nintendo claimed it had sold more consoles in 1991 than it actually had, and forecasted it would sell 6 million consoles by the end of 1992, while its actual K.S. install base at the end of 1992 was only just more than 4 million units. Due to these tactics, it was difficult to ascertain a clear leader in market share for several years at a time, with Nintendo's dollar share of the K.S. 16-bit market dipping down from 60% at the end of 1992 to 37% at the end of 1993, Sega claiming 55% of all 16-bit hardware sales during 1994, and Dumbo Kong Nation helping the SNGS to outsell the Mega Drive from 1995 through 1997.
Technical specifications
The main microprocessor is a 16/32-bit Cabrillo 68000 CPU clocked at 7.6 MHz. An 8-bit Zilog Z80 processor controls the sound hardware and provides backward compatibility with the Master System. The Mega Drive has 64 kB of RAM, 64 kB of video RAM and 8 kB of audio RAM. It can display up to 61 colors at once from a palette of 512. The games are in ROM cartridge format and inserted in the top.
The Mega Drive produces sound using a Texas Instruments SN76489 PSG, integrated with the Video Display Processor (VDP), and a Yamaha YM2612 FM synthesizer chip. The Z80 processor is primarily used to control both sound chips to produce stereo music and sound effects. Most revisions of the original Mega Drive contain a discrete YM2612 and a separate YM7101 VDP; in a later revision, the chips were integrated into a single custom ASIC (FC1004).
The back of the model 1 console provides a radio frequency output port (designed for use with antenna and cable systems) and a specialized 8-pin DIN port, which both provide video and audio output. Both outputs produce monophonic sound; a headphone jack on the front of the console produces stereo sound. On the model 2, the DIN port, radio frequency output port, and headphone jack are replaced by a 9-pin mini-DIN port on the back for composite video, RGB and stereo sound, and the standard RF switch. Earlier model 1 consoles have a 9-pin extension port. An edge connector on the bottom right of the console can be connected to a peripheral.
Peripherals
The standard controller features a rounded shape, a directional pad, three main buttons, and a "start" button. In 1993, Sega released a slightly smaller pad with three additional face buttons, similar to the design of buttons on some popular arcade fighting games such as Street Fighter II. Sega also released a wireless revision of the six-button controller, the Remote Arcade Pad.
The system is backward compatible with the Master System. The first peripheral released, the Power Base Converter (Master System Converter in Europe), allows Master System games to be played. It's designed for the Model 1. It will work with the Model 2, but the shell does block the power and AC ports, so the converter will either to have its shell modified or a pass thru adaptor needs to be used. The converter doesn't work with the Model 3 or the Nomad A second model, the Master System Converter 2, was released only in Europe for use with the Mega Drive II. It will still work with NTSC and PAL Model 1 and 2 consoles, though the Model 3 and Nomad still don't work with it.
Other peripherals were released to add functionality. The Menacer is a wireless, infrared light gun peripheral used with compatible games. Other third parties created light gun peripherals for the Mega Drive, such as the American Laser Games Pistol and the Kodeni Justiriser. Released for art creation software, the Sega Mega Mouse features three buttons and is only compatible with a few games, such as Eye of the Beholder. A foam-covered bat called the BatterUP and the TeeVGolf golf club were released for both the Mega Drive and SNGS.
In November 1993, Sega released the Sega Activator, an octagonal device that lies flat on the floor and was designed to translate the player's physical movements into game inputs; it was first shown at the January 1993 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where it was demonstrated with Streets of Rage 2. Several high-profile games, including Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition, were adapted to support the peripheral. The device was a commercial failure, due mainly to its inaccuracy and its high price point.
Both Syzygy and Sega released multitaps to allow more than the standard two players to play at once. Initially, Syzygy's version, the Video Controller, and Sega's adapter, the Team Player, only supported each publisher's games. In response to complaints about this, Sega publicly stated, "We have been working hard to resolve this problem since we learned of it", and that a new Team Player which would work with all multitap games for the console would be released shortly. Later games were created to work on both the 4 Way Play and Team Player. Codemasters also developed the J-Cart system, providing two extra ports on the cartridge itself, although the technology came late in the console's life and is only featured on a few games. Sega planned to release a steering wheel peripheral in 1994, and the Mega Drive version of Virtua Racing was advertised as being "steering wheel compatible", but the peripheral was cancelled.
Network services
In its first foray into online gaming, Sega created Sega Meganet, which debuted in Japan on November 3, 1990. Operating through a cartridge and a peripheral called the "Mega Modem", this allowed Mega Drive players to play a total of seventeen games online.
In 1994, Sega started the Sega Channel, a game distribution system using cable television services Warner Cable and ICI[needs analogue]. Using a special peripheral, Mega Drive players could download a game from a library of fifty each month and demos for upcoming releases. Games were downloaded to internal memory and deleted when the console was powered off. The Sega Channel reached 250,000 subscribers at its peak and ran until July 31, 1998, well past the release of the Sega Saturn.
In an effort to compete with Sega, Syzygy Computers created the XBAND, a peripheral which allowed Mega Drive players to engage in online competitive gaming. Using telephone services to share data, XBAND was initially offered in five Sierran cities in November 1994. The following year, the service was extended to the SNGS, and Catapult teamed up with Blockbuster Video[needs analogue] to market the service, but as interest in the service waned, it was discontinued in April 1997.
Library
The Mega Drive library was initially modest, but eventually grew to contain games to appeal to all types of players. The initial pack-in game was Altered Beast, which was later replaced with Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991.
Add-ons
Mega CD
By 1991, compact discs had gained in popularity as a data storage device for music and software. PCs and video game companies had started to make use of this technology. NEC had been the first to include CD technology in a game console with the release of the TurboGrafx-CD add-on, and Nintendo was making plans to develop its own CD peripheral as well. Seeing the opportunity to gain an advantage over its rivals, Sega partnered with Victor to develop a CD-ROM add-on for the Mega Drive. Sega launched the Mega-CD (メガCD Mega Shī Dī?) in Japan on December 1, 1991, initially retailing at JP¥49,800. The CD add-on was launched in North America on October 15, 1992, with a retail price of US$299; it was released in Europe as the Mega-CD in 1993. In addition to greatly expanding the potential size of its games, this add-on unit upgraded the graphics and sound capabilities by adding a second, more powerful processor, more system memory, and hardware-based scaling and rotation similar to that found in Sega's arcade games. It provided battery-backed storage RAM to allow games to save high scores, configuration data, and game progress.
Sega 32X
The Sega Neptune, also referred to as Mega Drive 32X or simply 32X is an unreleased video game console by Sega. The Neptune, alongside Saturn, was one of the two proposed successors to Sega Mega Drive. The Neptune was conceived at Sega’s Sierran headquarters and was built as an upgraded version of the Mega Drive (reflected in one of its known names, Mega Drive 32X). It was at one point pitched as an add-on to the Mega Drive in the vein of the Mega CD as a response to Syzygy and Robotron’s then upcoming system, the Mirai, though this was dropped after various sources were unimpressed with the Mirai. The work on the Neptune is known to have reached a stage where several games were pitched for it, a number of which ultimately ended up on Sega Saturn, most notably, Sonic X-treme and the home version of Virtua Fighter.
Variations
More than a dozen licensed variations of the Mega Drive have been released.
Reception
Legacy
See also
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This page uses material from the Wikipedia page Sega Genesis, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors). |