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A Sega Master System converter was availible for the Genesis. The Powerbase converter plugs into the cartridge port. All Master System accessories, including the light gun and 3D glasses, can be used for this converter.
Since the System 16 arcade games that Sega was making were very popular, Hayao Nakayama , Sega's CEO at the time, decided to make their new home system a 16-bit one. The final design worked great and fit in well with Sega's three new arcade boards; the Megatech , Megaplay , and the System C . Any arcade game made for these systems could easily, and thus rapidly, be made to work on the new console (a process known as portingIn computer science, porting is the adaptation of a piece of software so that it will function in a different computing environment to that for which it was originally written. Porting is usually required because of differences in the central processing u).
The first name Sega considered using for its 16-bit machine was "MK-1601", but they later decided to use Sega Megadrive. The name was designed to imply superiority, speed, and power. However, "Megadrive" was trademarked in the United States, so Sega chose the name Genesis for that region, a name meant to mark the beginning of a new age in videogames.
In 1987, Sega announced their North American release date and stated that their own console was the first true 16-bit console (a dig at NECThe initials NEC may stand for: NEC Corporation (Nippon Electric Co. National Electric Code National Exhibition Centre NEC_e616 (NEC Corporation 3G Mobile Phone) National Engineering College The Dutch soccer club NEC Nijmegen TLAs.'s TurboGrafx 16, which was being marketed as 16-bit).
The Genesis was released in the United States in January 9, 1989 in New York City and Los Angeles only. It sold for around $200 at launch and was to become Sega's most successful console. It was released in the rest of North America on September 15 with a reduced price of $190.
The Genesis initially competed against the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System, but although it had superior graphics and sound, it had a hard time overcoming Nintendo's ubiquitous presence in the consumer's home. Sega of America competed by focusing on a slightly older user base, with such titles as Altered Beast and the Phantasy Star series. The TurboGrafx 16, which had been released six months earlier, had been poorly marketed in North America, so it wasn't a threat in that market.
Some felt there were too many arcade ports in the Genesis's library, and that there wasn't a " killer app", but third party companies such as Electronic Arts (The Immortal), and Capcom ( Strider) kept the console alive.
Eventually, the Genesis' main competition became Nintendo's 16-bit Super Nintendo, over which it had a head start in terms of user base and number of games. The Genesis continued to hold on to a healthy fan base composed significantly of RPG fans and sports games fans, and the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 began to threaten Nintendo's up-to-then stranglehold on the number one console position in the USA. Sonic was released to replace former mascot Alex Kidd, and to provide the "killer app" that Sega needed. This sparked what was arguably the greatest console war in North American video gaming history, at least up until that point. By 1992, Sega had a 55% market share in the North American video game market.
The release of the highly-anticipated Sonic the Hedgehog 2, coinciding with an aggressive ad campaign that took shots at Nintendo, propelled the Genesis into its heyday, outselling the Super Nintendo for the first time since the SNES's release.
Also in 1992, Sega redesigned the console and released the Sega Genesis 2, which reduced cost and size by consolidating chips, and integrated stronger region encoding (which broke compatibility with some older games). The original console itself went through innumerable revisions -- unknown to most users, the very first consoles had trouble playing a few of the newer games. A new version of the Sega CD, the Sega CD 2, was made to accommodate this.
The Sega CD and Sega Genesis 32X (Sega Super 32X in Japan and Sega Mega 32X in Europe) were peripherals which provided technological enhancements to the Genesis, allowing it to play CD-based and 32-bit games, respectively. However, both were disappointments because of poor third party support.
Because of the failures of the Sega CD and 32X, the lack of advertising, and the disputes between Sega of America and Sega of Japan, things were grim by 1994. The Genesis version of Mortal Kombat outsold the SNES version four to one, because the Sega version had uncensored violence, unlike the Nintendo counterpart. However, people became worried over the level of violence in this and other Sega videogames. Sega introduced the Videogames Rating Council , or VRC, to combat this.
Market share dropped from 65% to 35% within the course of 1994. Announcements of newer, more powerful consoles, such as the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, and Nintendo's "Project Atlantis" (codename for the N64) signaled that the 16-bit era was drawing to a close, with a corresponding drop in interest in the Genesis (see Video game market).
In 1995, a portable version of the system called the Sega Nomad was released.
In 1996, Sega dropped support of the Genesis in favor of the Sega Saturn.
Sega considered a Game Gear Converter, tentatively named the Mega Game Gear, but it was never produced.
In 1997, Majesco announced that they wanted to make a budget version of the Genesis. In 1998, Majesco released the "Sega Genesis 3" for $50, in North America only.
There were also a number of Genesis clones (see below).
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