David Hayward rekindles his youth and looks at one of our favourite consoles
I was surprised to find out the other day that among the various tablets, phones, MP4 players and whatnots, one of the most successful Christmas gifts of this year so far is a re-release of the Sega Mega Drive.
Sold by Argos and other such shops, this new version of an old favourite is more of an ARM-powered emulator with the ability to take the original hardware – in terms of the controllers and the cartridges – but it lacks some of the support for the special FX chips that appeared on the special cartridges. However, for the sake of £40 or thereabouts, it’s a great little console for modern TVs and living rooms.
Saying that, those of us who can fondly recall the original will no doubt frown at this strange, new, plastic box. Gone are the sleek lines of the Mega Drive we all knew and loved. The volume slider, the large on/off switch, the slightly recessed Reset button, that circular area where the cartridge would slot in and the smooth shape of the controller with its D-pad and three-button arrangement.
It was probably one of the first consoles many of us actually bought ourselves. Personally, I paid £20 for one, from my wages in the shipyard, from a bloke from Walney Island. Oddly enough, he showed me it was working, boxed it up with a selection of games and threw in a copy of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa’s The Third Eye.
I have no idea why he did that, but after playing Streets of Rage for countless hours, it was always nice to settle down for the night with a more metaphysical setting.
Its History
Following on from the Sega Mark III or, as we knew it, the Sega Master System (after a short redesign for Western markets), the world of technology was rapidly changing. The old 8-bit processors were being phased out in favour of the more powerful and faster 16-bit – something that was beginning to form in the home computer market.
Getting a 16-bit processor inside a home games console was the real Holy Grail, though. With NEC launching the PC Engine and Nintendo hot on its heels, Sega made the decision that a significant impact had to be made and that was with its new line of consoles.
On 19th October 1988 the Sega Mega Drive was launched in Japan, but it didn’t quite hit the sweet spot with the buying public, being behind the PC Engine and Nintendo’s Super Famicom. Better success, however, followed a year later with the US release, named the Sega Genesis, and the European release.
A few months after the November 1990 European release of the Mega Drive, it quickly became the most popular console for the region. And since it had been nearly a couple of years since its initial release in the East, there were a considerable number of games available ready for the Christmas rush.
Since then, over 31 million units have been sold and many millions more in the form of the licensed third-party releases, such as the aforementioned version for this year. Despite its age, then, it looks like there’s life in the old dog yet.
The Good
Amazing arcade graphics. Backward compatibility (with a special unit) for Master System games. Reasonably inexpensive on its release.
The Bad
The controller didn’t always stand up to much abuse over time. Follow-up add-ons didn’t sell too well – the 32X, for example.
Conclusion
The Sega Mega Drive is a console from a time when arcade quality meant something and games were affordable.
Thank you, Sega.
Did You Know?
• The Mega Drive was Sega’s last hope at making money off a console outside of Japan.
• The Japanese model was released with a Mega Drive modem.
• There are still games being made for the Mega Drive.
• EA made its own Mega Drive cartridges, cutting Sega out of the loop and profiting hugely in the process.