Sega Master System 1

• • Manufacturer: Sega

  • Generation: Third (8 bit)

  • Year Released: June 1986

  • Units sold: 13,000,000

  • Media: ROM Cartridges

  • Successor: Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Published in 1986 The Sega Master System was almost a degenerate among the consoles that were ruling the market due to bad releases, bad timing and Nintendo´s overpowering success. Even though Sega made some innovative things it never got very popular, but had some success in Brazil and Europe.

History

After having produced many games for the earlier gaming consoles, Sega decided to make their own console. They made a couple of consoles that were available in Japan but after witnessing the success of the NES they decided that they wanted a piece of the American market. So in 1986 they finally released the Sega Master System. Technically it was superior to the NES but Nintendo had a huge advantage on Sega due to its third party developers policy. The SMS didn´t do all that well in the U.S.A. or Japan, but had a great success in the European and Brazilian market. Because of that Sega decided to open its Sega Europe division.

Hardware

• • 8 Bit Cpu

  • 3.58 MHz processor

  • 463 - 64 Sprites depending on the size

    • Size 8 x 8 or 8 x 16

  • 8 Bit graphics

    • Could show up to 32 colors at a time (16 for sprites and 16 for background) Could be pushed up to 64 with programming tricks.

  • 4 mono sound channels

    • 3 tone generators

    • 1 white noise generator

  • RAM - 8 Bit, could be increased while using certain cartridges

  • Video Ram - 16 Bit

External Hardware

• • The main controller was a, then new, classic d-pad + 2 button controller. Some versions included a hole for a screw in stick.

  • Later also made a trackball controller which was considered trash, and only one game was produced specifically for that controller which apparently was even worse.

  • Through the years they made few versions of the controllers, which ended up looking a lot like the Sega Mega drive controller.

  • They developed a gun that was supposed to compete with Nintendo´s Zapper, that gun was called "The Light Phaser" that product never got very popular.

  • Their most innovative product has to be the 3D glasses that they made. It utilized the interlacing technology that was in TV´s to make certain games look like they were in 3D. This is similar to the technology in theaters when movies are in 3D.

    • Only 6 games were produced for these glasses, couple of good ones but it never got very popular.

  • Later Sega published a external slot reader for the Sega Mega, so that computer could read the old games that were published for the SMS.

Notable Qualities

Like said before the Sega Master System had hardware that were a lot better than the NES. The console didn't do very well but Sega tried very hard to be innovative (see external hardware). But because of the massive lead Nintendo had established with their console Sega really never really had much of a chance.

What was pretty interesting about that console though was that it had two slots, one for cartridges and one for cards. Those cards were a similar size as the modern day credit card, but was used rarely.

Notable Titles

Sega always had a hard time with publishing games because of NES but they did make a couple of good games that kept the console going for example: Phantasy star, with out a doubt the most popular game Sega did, one of the first RPG's to launch on a console, Double dragon, Mortal Combat, Mortal Combat 2, Double Dragon, Wonder Boy 3, Master of Darkness (a very popular Castelvania clone). Then finally the last official release for that Console was "Sonic the Hedgehog" in 1991, after that it was the Sega Mega Drive´s Turn. Even though Sega made a couple of near franchise titles, most of its games were thought to be mediocre to trash.

References

• Gamespy article

• Sega Master System Museum - Fan page

• 1A Master

• Consollection

• Wikipedia page