Eidolon´s Inn - Genesis

Sega Genesis / Mega Drive
System information

History & Hardware variations

The Mark I console

The Sega Genesis was released in Japan on the 29th of October 1988, and in the USA on the 1st of September 1989. At that time, no other console could compete with Sega´s powerful 16-bit system, apart from the PC-Engine / TurboGrafx-16, perhaps. But due to a lack of third-party support - especially with the arrival of the SNES, because many of the major game companies were still bound to Nintendo because of the contracts they made in the NES era - the Genesis never became as successful as Nintendo´s 16-bit console. Nevertheless, about 28,5 million consoles were sold worldwide, compared to about 48 million SNES consoles. Looking at the different regions of the world, the Genesis was most successful in the USA. It was quite strong in Europe, too (especially Great Britain is famous for being the European Sega stronghold), but did not succeed very well in Japan, Nintendo's home country. It was definitely no mistake to buy the console, as I did in early 1990, shortly after Super Shinobi had been released. Among the approximetaly 1000 games which were produced during the Genesis´ lifespan (about 10 years during 1988-1998) are a lot of evergreens which deserve to be played even today.

There are three flavors of the standard Genesis. The Mark I console is a somewhat rectangular affair with an offset raised circle, and is the only model with a headphone jack and volume control. The Mark II console is the now-familiar square low-profile affair with the cartridge port almost exactly in the middle of the unit. The Mark III console, also known as the Genesis 3, is a bargain-basement model that was made under license by Majesco in 1998 that resembles a portable CD player; it is often derisively called "the hockey puck." The Genesis 3 lacks the expansion port of its predecessors; hence you cannot use a Sega CD player with it.

The Mark II console

The Genesis Nomad

There are two other names/variations of the standard Genesis console. The Mega Drive is the Japanese and European version; it is identical under the hood, but its case and cartridge styling are a little different. The Nomad is a portable Genesis much in the same vein as the Game Gear unit. Any game designed for one of these consoles will work with the others, but they may have to be set for the specific market (USA, Japan, Europe) involved. This usually involves a well-documented hardware modification to the unit in question. The only Genesis titles that are known not to work with the Nomad are Phantasy Star MD and Outback Joey.

There are also three known officially licensed clone consoles - the JVC X'Eye (aka the Wonder Mega, circa 1993, US$280), the Pioneer MegaDrive module for its CLD-A160 LaserVision player (circa 1993, US$1600), and an Aiwa portable stereo/Sega CD combo unit (exact details unknown at this time, but Sega Forever has the picture). There are also a number of other obscure spinoffs, but I will not deal with them here. I have seen the Pioneer LaserVision with a MegaDrive module, but chose to buy a used but still-serviceable JVC X'Eye instead (I'm looking for a good original copy of the owner's manual, if somebody has an extra).

The Wondermega / JVC X'Eye

The Terra Drive

Assumed Aiwa CSD-GM1

There are some other hardware variations of the Sega Genesis, but most of them were released in Japan only, such as the MegaJet (a portable Mega Drive without a display) and the Mega Drive CSD-GM1 (by JVC; details unkown).

But one rare variation of the Genesis deserves special mentioning: The Sega Terra Drive. This was an ordinary AMD 386SX PC (25MHz) with 2MB of RAM - but it had a built-in Mega Drive as a 16bit ISA cart. In Japan, it was shipped with a set of development tools which made it possible to program your own Genesis games without further hassle. However, it wasn't very successful in Japan, mainly due to its high price (about $3000). The Terra Drive was sold in Europe by Amstrad with the name "Mega PC". Believe it or not: I'm one of the lucky guys who owns one of those rare pieces of hardware. Unfortunately, I own the European version which came without the development tools. If anyone can supply me with those, please contact me!

The Amstrad MegaPC

Let's get to the add-on hardware for the "basic" Genesis.
The most popular add-on was the Sega CD (called "Mega CD" in Japan and Europe), for which about 250 games were developed. This device is discussed in detail on my Sega CD page.

The other important add-on, the Genesis 32X (called "Super 32X" in Japan and "Mega 32X" in Europe), which was released in Japan on the 3rd of December 1994, wasn´t very successful (only about 90 games were released for that device, including about 10 32X CD games). It disappeared fast when the Saturn become way more successful in 1995.

With the help of the so-called Power Base converter it was possible to play (almost) every single Master System game, which added another 250 games to the library of playable games.