Sega Genesis

• • Manufacturer: Sega

  • Designer: Sega

  • Generation: Fourth

  • Bits: 16-bit

  • Year Released: 1989(Japan), 1989(Europe), 1990(North America)

  • Units sold: 29million worldwide

  • Media: ROM cartridge

  • Summary: Sega knew home video games is the future, they tried to buy in the arcade audience because arcades never make TV commercials like Nintendo. Sega replicated the arcade experience, at home. The Sega Genesis is the most successful console made by Sega

History

In 1989, Nintendo owned the whole games industry, basically monopolizing it. Atari tried to compete but failed miserably. For Sega, their Master System wasn't doing so great as well. Sega came up with the Sega Genesis, and they were extremely aggressive, they flooded the industry with negative advertisements: "Genesis Does What NintenDon't". They targeted more on mature audiences, and waited for the Nintendo fans to grow up. Nintendo had their own celebrities like Mario and Link, they made them, Sega didn't had any so they made a bunch of sports games and had celebrities sign them helping them advertise their games, like Arnold Palmer Golf, Pat Rilet Basketball, Moonwalker (Michael Jackson), Buster Douglas Boxing, Joe Montana Football. Sega made up Sonic afterwards to compete with Nintendo and they were winning at the time, until Nintendo made the Super NES, their level at the technology was then even and their battle basically restarted.

Nintendo made Final Fight, Sega in order to compete made Streets of Rage, Sega didn't have Final Fantasy, they made Phantasy Star. Nintendo and Sega's marketing technique was different, Nintendo rather spend a long time making a few games each year while Sega bombards the industry with a huge amount of good games, finally Sega was on the top owning 65% of the console market. Sega thought they were winning because of their hardware, they spent incredibly amount of money investing on hardware and not so much on software, ultimately burning themselves down.

Hardware

External Hardware

Add-ons:

Sega CD

Sega 32X

Notable Qualities

Competing with Nintendo, Sega made a lot of fun games, and come out more often than Nintendo.

Sega's target was more on mature consumers, they made sports games and a lot of them involved real people and celebrities. Their games were also more intellectually stimulating like Sword of Vermilion (1991), also "artsy games" like Tom Jam & Earl (1991) and Ecco the Dolphin (1993)

Notable Titles

Altered Beast

Space Harrier

Out Run

Strider

Afterburner

Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)

Sword of Vermilion (1989)

Streets of Rage 2 (1992)

Phantasy Star III (1991)

Kid Chameleon (1992)

Comix Zone (1995)

References