My buddy got a Master System for Christmas but the game inside was cracked & didn't work. He was bummed out he could not play it on Christmas Morning! The next day i came over & he was showing me his gifts & showed me how he set up the Sega to the TV & turned it on as he was re-acting what he did & he hit the buttons just right to start the Snail Maze game! Our minds were blown away! What an epic day that was!
This console is VERY special, indeed. And considering the fact that I am Brazilian and had a version of it, the Super Compact, it's a no-brainer at all. Those amazing facts show how much the success of the Sega Master System doesn't have to be measured by its commercial failure in the USA or in its home country, Japan. Europe, Brazil, South Korea or Australia have shown their love to this marvelous Sega console in different ways. Tec Toy here in Brazil made an exceptional work to secure a lifetime for this console on an unprecedented level, in spite of economic adversities in the country. So, I am glad to watch here and learn a bit more about one of my all-time videogame consoles!
I found that most of the Master System videos out there approach the console from totally the wrong perspective, probably because a lot of them are made by Americans. Nobody is interested in how it got "destroyed by the NES" or "didn't have any Konami game, which means it sucks!". I wanted to make a video that celebrated the Master System, not diminished it.
@@TheLairdsLair The fact is that most video game channels (Specially retro) are just buzzfeed and don't really care about facts, just to reinforce the wrong ideas that people already have just to make the audience feels fine with their own ignorance. The issue with the MS in the US is that the console is pretty obscure and even older players that were kids in the 80s and early 90s are experiencing it just now. You will never have the experience of playing a full championship between twenty friends in the same room with Jogos de Verão (California Games... that were limited to 12 or 16 players, I believe, but we gave our way around) or in anyone of the countless multiplayer games in the console. I can't say that local multiplayer with the Master System were better than on the Famicom, but it was, by far, the best in the Master System. Other than that, the console carry no nostalgia to these folks, so they see the games for what they are now, not by how good they were in the time. For example, Phantasy Star were my first RPG (played in a friend's console) just because it were the very first one translated to Portuguese (by Tec Toy) and that made JRPG be one of my very favorite genres... American players had a lot of good JRPGs on the NES, independently of these be or not better than Phantasy Star, but Americans will obviously carry a shtload of nostalgia by those other games and will create pour comparisons. Thank you very much for delivering a non-biased video about this console. I can say that it was so good that even being a Nintendo player I just loved to play on the Master System even back in the time. Cheers!
@TheLairdsLair first time I played Columns was on my exes SMS - absolutely loved it. Pissed her off too as I beat her high score on my very first go. 😇
@@VampireJack10 Popularity? That's a good question. You can tell that it's quite accessible to buy the newest model of Master System, the Evolution which has 132 games in the memory, and, yup, it's pretty cheap to buy one for R$360. Definetely affordable for the lower middle class. If it's popular among younger people, it's something that I'm not sure about because cellphone games are VERY popular here. I think the normal public that buys a Master System Evolution isn't interested in retrogames, but probably a parent who wants to build a bond with his/her child through a video game. It's not highly publicized, but something of a niche market. But, yeah, maybe Tectoy knows that they have a retrogaming demand. (By the way, Tectoy wants to return to the front row with a PC Console called Zeenix, which hasn't been commercialized yet...) Foreigners mustn't have the wrong idea that the youngest generation of Brazilian gamers doesn't know the Xbox Series, the newest iteration of Playstation, a Nintendo Switch, or even a PC Gamer. The thing is: the newest generation of consoles and computers here is expensive for the average people, not affordable unless somebody with a better economic resource offers the chance to play. So... There's no crown to be offered to a specific console. Those are different times. Cellphones with Android reign supreme here. However, the thing is: a Master System Evolution is still cheaper than the cheapest new phone, or equivalent to a used one.
My brothers and I had a Master System Super Compact (wireless Tec Toy exclusive), and my fondest memory was (unintentionally) hijacking the TV broadcast of my neighbors with SMS gameplay, and they ringing our doorbell in mass to tell my father that our video game was interrupting their TV shows and demanding him to do something about it. My father then banned us from using the wireless mode (you could still connect directly to the TV by connecting the wireless receiver RF cable directly into the handheld's antennae port, making it essentially "docked"). What makes me flabbergasted is how the neighbors figured it we were the culprits, considering we didn't just go telling everyone every new purchase we had. However, whenever my parents weren't at home, we would play in wireless mode: one of us played in the bedroom TV while the other two of us watched in the large living room TV 😅
Reminds me of a similar story of mine. When I was about 14 we had new neighbours move in and they went out and bought a new TV and it was the exact same one we had. Our houses were semi-detached (so joined together) and their TV was just by their front bay window so I could stand by our window and change the channels on their TV. I had to stop doing it though because their dad got so angry!
I had to get rid of my SMS II when downsizing probably getting on 10 years ago now. Still got my Alex Kidd and The Ninja carts amoungst others mind, such a good console.
My friend Dan had this when we were kids but only cause his mum couldn't get him a mega drive til a few years later. But what a consolation console 😅 this was so good, even Sonic 2 with the infamous hang glider
I'm glad you showed the box for the original Master System that had Alex Kidd in Miracle World built in, as there are quite a few people out there that don't believe Sega's mascot at the time was available as a built-in title prior to the launch of the Master System II.
In Brazil, the MS was sold since day one with Miracle World. It could not be as good as a mascot as Sonic or Mario (considerably better than Polygon Man, for sure lol), but for us the character was the face of SEGA until the hedgehog arrived and Miracle World were good enough to even be considered by a lot of folks as a superior game compared with the first two Super Mario (the original and the Doki Doki Panic reskin)
Mine wasn't. North America, here. The Snail game was built in mine, not Alex Kidd. I think they didn't start building AK in until a bit later (I got mine for Christmas 1987.) Edit- I just went and checked my current Master System, and it has the Snail game, no Alex Kidd.
@@kutulukutuHere in Sweden someone had the snail game. I wonder how they thought. What's the symbology between snail vs Alex 🤔🧐 The Sega has it's pros ofc vs Nintendo and i like it. Nintendo has more feelings for me 😊 It's organic and familiar.
Here in the states I only knew two people who owned one and was never able to get any time with it. A real shame, it looks like, and I’d love to snag one at some point!
I love and grew up with the Master System here in Australia it was my second console coming from Atari 2600 on to my master system console was amazing back then as a kid especially me growing up during the good days arcading gaming and I still remember when dad got me my master system with three games they were Wonder Boy , Double Dragon , Black Belt , I was like wow i get to play arcade games at home seeing Wonder Boy really impressed me as it was a really good port for the MS console and Double Dragon was just good 2 player fun with my family friends and neighbours and Black Belt was so cool too the MS console holds special memories for me I will never forget so thank you for this great video on my favourite console 👍
4 minutes in and I have to say, your video is very well done. I'm glad UA-cam recommended this one to me. The Master System is a special console to me. I love seeing videos about it. Well done and take care.
Apparently, Sega did (or does?) want to release an SG-1000 mini, that would include games from the rest of the "family", since the success of the MD Mini, but thanks to the "wonderful" idea of making several surveys, they have refrained from doing this anytime soon as the results always end up with the Saturn and Dreamcast being what people want as minis, something that probably won't be possible cheaply before 2027, the Saturn probably until 2035. No, FPGAs are not an option, minis have to be cheap, not cost more than your current mobile (and it seems DC FPGA emulation is still in early stages. Yes, emulation. Deal with it!).
*amazing video sir and info too! One of my favorite systems! Btw there is a 8-Bit FM adaptor you can buy for GENESIS so you don't have to take anything apart!* ⭐️
In the US Nintendo more or less locked Sega out of many retailers by using threats of cutting them off from new supplies of NES games and hard ware which was a huge seller, It wasn't until the Genesis that Sega was able to crack that stranglehold. In the UK and the rest of Europe it was different as the company in charge of NES distrubution screwed up the entirely thing and Sega took advantage.
A very unknown fact and one that, AFAIK, is not very well documented (if at all!) is how the SMS actually beat Nintendo in Mexico... at least on legal channels. First some context. For nearly 20 years, the Mexican government adopted politics that limited capitalism in a huge way; imports of finished goods were limited and highly taxable, expropriation of enterprises and media happened almost every day and goods had to be manufactured, at least in their final stages, within the country to be legally attainable. This caused a huge lag between what was sold in the US and Japan, for an instance, the crash did not happen here, however, we did have the side effect of smugglers getting in liquidation huge lots of unsold Atari and Intellivision hardware and software to be sold cheaply, which created a second generation videogame boom around 1984 and 1985. The NES, or rather the Famicom, started to be known in 1986 but as arcade machines with bootleg Famicom consoles inside, as even those were very expensive. By 1987, some policies were relaxed and more imports were now attainable. Atari had a golden age selling consoles and computers legally in stores. A distributing company was established around that time and they would import the Sega Master System and later the Genesis, its name was DISAM or Distribudora Sega de México (Sega distributor of Mexico). DISAM went all out by having an association with Mexico´s only private television broadcaster at the time, Televisa. They had adverts within the daily kids programming on their dedicated channel for that, as prizes in game shows and as rentals on Televisa's own version of Blockbuster Video. Around 88 and 89, the Famicom became widely known thanks to those bootleg arcades, smugglers started to import from China the bootleg systems and finally, a Japanese medical instruments importer decided to import the American NES and Game Boy lines legally within the country. Although this was the beginning of the end for DISAM, the war would go on for a couple of years, after all, there were quite a few SMS owners, and the Genesis was released just a few months after its US debut and it would also gain a lot of fans. By this point you might be wondering, "well, in the end they caught on with the US and Nintendo reigned triumphant, so, what's the big deal?" The deal was DISAM didn't imported from Sega of America, they imported from Sega Enterprises; C. Itoh would also do the same, getting the games from Japan but keeping ties with Nintendo of America, in fact, TMNT IV was released a month before it hit the stores in the US, Mexico and LA got the first 2 ISSS Konami games and almost got Parodius, Dragon Ball Z2 and Sailor Moon for the SNES. Because of this and the short-lived but strong popularity of the SMS, when Sega dropped the deal with Tonka and there was this hiatus between that and the release of the Genesis, DISAM kept importing games from Japan, but since there were no American releases, they got European ones instead. For about 2 years, all new SMS releases in Mexico were European, so in Mexico you could get games like Dynamite Dux, Laser Ghost, Psycho Fox (before the US got it when Sega briefly revived it), Shadow Dancer, The Cyber Shinobi, G-LOC, and many more that went unreleased in the US plus several reprints from Europe. You can actually still find in the wild, although they don't come out often, later Taito European releases such as Taito Chase H.Q., Bubble Bobble and Sagaia. By far is not much as the Brazilian phenomenon, but it's interesting that the Sega products, at least briefly, beat Nintendo just a few kilometers to the south from the US and even had more games.
A Sega Master System video sponsored by a Sega Master book? How befitting. 1:17 - Your channel has been around for a while so I had assumed you had already covered an amazing fact video on the Master System, just way before I had even subscribed. Indeed, very surprising it is only now being covered. 3:31 - It's rather fun seeing the evolution of the controllers from Sega Mark 1, to II and then Master System. The way it shifts from the Gen 2 standard of controller to eventually become the Gen 3 style of controller like the NES and (EU/later) 7800 controllers. 6:23 - A sensible decision, given a lot of their game making approach was making console versions of their pre-existing arcade games. 8:26 - That was very Mario inspired at first... and then the Super Mario World Rex marches on screen looking straight ripped out of the SNES game. 11:17 - Interesting to hear, and rather befitting the British mentality of the day. It's strange though; I've seen Sega Master System cartridge games pop in retro retailers and stores before, but never any of the Sega cards. I suppose it's harder to protect them when loose compared to the cartridges, so many are likely lost. 17:04 - Tec Toy clearly put a lot of work into these ports; the Monica game changed a lot of the sprites to get it accurate and they had to sort the Game Gear's wider colour palette when porting said games to the Master System. 18:38 - So was that an added cost to the Mega Drive (having Master System backwards compatibility built in) or did it not add on much of a price difference? Interesting they'd design the Mega Drive to have that capability given the Master System only sold well in Brazil and Europe, regions that never seemed to be Sega's focus, despite them finding success there. 23:15 - Nice to have such a handy side-by-side breakdown of the sales here. What a difference in sales. I heard the NES only got competitive with the Master System once, and that was with the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles game bundle that the NES had.
I love the Master System. I never completed Alex Kidd as a kid but recently completed it using save states. I think that still counts as completing it imo. 😊 🇬🇧
Not sure the SMS gets as much love and respect as it should - it was a big thing! Well, outside the US (where most retro channels originate so they just bang on and on (and on) about the NES..) Met quite a few people who had a Master System growing up here in the UK vs, well, no one with a Nintendo.
Lol, I bought the book and I was surprized to see that you wrote the book while reading it. I watched your videos, but missed that part lol. I also learned that you wrote for Retro Gamer (I was subscribed to that magazine).
@@TheLairdsLair I would pay premium to have a hard cover of your book with better paper and colors, like Bitmapbook quality. I am getting richer as modern games are trash and I save a lot of money by not buying them lol.
Endless hours of playing, infinite memories about me and my cousin trying to beat games after games! The various Alex Kidd games, the amazing Sonic games, Shadow Dancer, The Cyber Shinobi, Master of Darkness, The Incredible Hulk (stunning graphics for an 8-bit system), Dynamite Dux, Dynamite Duke, the incredible Disney games, Shinobi, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, Dick Tracy, Ghouls & Ghosts, but the list can go on and on and on... This has been the console of we european people. Nintendo had a real chance here only with the unbeatable Game Boy or the Super Nintendo, but the Mega Drive was way more appealing for us, maybe because it was more arcade-oriented, I don't know!
@@TheLairdsLair oh yes, we saw that. In fact, arcade game conversion have been the true heart of Mega Drive's first catalog. Years after their first release, those games still got huge sales (judging from what magazines reported about games' sales for month). Growing up, Mega Drive has become my favourite retro console also due to its amazing built-in FM Yamaha synthesizer: the Mega Drive is the reason why today I love having fun with synths and I love creating various kinds of eletronic music! 😍
The SG-1000 used the same GPU as the ColecoVision, the MSX 1 and the Texas Instrument TI-99/4. My understanding is that the GPU inside the SMS is an improvement upon the Texas Instrument GPU. The SMS features smooth hardware bidirectional scrolling (very similar to Nintendo's) and multicolor sprites.
Not quite. The SMS seems to be its own thing but includes a compatible graphics mode which is not quite compatible. Most colors are off and some graphics glitches appear. A Coleco to SMS adapter was released this year, but it makes the not so good graphics compatibility even more noticeable. Makes me wonder if it was an afterthought.
“Alex Kidd in Miracle World, undoubtedly the best game in the popular Alex Kidd franchise” SO MANY DOUBTS. Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is a far, FAR better game than Miracle World.
The Master System was my favorite system I ever owned. I spent hours playing Teddy Boy, Alex Kidd and Miracle Warriors. The great thing was that the US system was not region locked and would convert PAL to NTSC so I was able to get games from all over the world. Too bad I lost my collection in a house fire…
It is region locked, although nearly all of PAL and US NTSC games shared the same region code, albeit certain incompatibility issues with a few games occur. The reason why converters for the Japanese SMS to play western SMS games exist but not the other way around is because the BIOS can check regions (including US and PAL) and if it doesn't find certain bits in the header, which would not be present at all in all SG-1000 and Mark III software, the console will display a Software Error message. The cards fit without problems, but will always show that message, making them unplayable outside Japan.
Whoa! Everyone pause the video @ 22:57! Read the entire advertisement. Man, I thought Sega pushed the advertising envelope here in the US. Had that ad run here in the States parents would have formed a posse complete with guns and horses to run Sega out of town. People may have died for that one. ;) Fun Fact: Sega released the Master System in Japan in 1987 with enhancements not seen in other regions. It had the 9 channel FM sound chip built in, a rapid fire switch, and a dedicated port for the 3D glasses.
Sega/Virgin's UK advertising was really edgy at the time and it definitely helped them. I did talk about the FM audio in the Japanese SMS in the video.
Given Sega's success in Europe and other regions I've always wondered why they were so obsessed with taking over the US, to the point that obsession contributed to them leaving the hardware market.
Yep, I've said similar things about Atari too, who also experienced my more success in Europe during the late 80s, but Jack Tramiel was just obsessed with breaking America.
The PC-Engine's card slot (and the SMS's) is just like any other cartridge slot. You could add whatever you want if you can talk over the cart interface. But the Arcade Card is just extra RAM.
There's one inaccuracy in the video. the Atari 7800 definitely did not outsell the master system in the United States, as shown in your graph of the sales figures. its a very common quoted figure but Atari never released their sales numbers, so the common belief now is that the 3.7 million sales figure is of *all* Atari 7800 products, including things like games and extra controllers. i wouldn't be shocked if the sales number was actually higher in Europe because Atari was essentially a dead brand after 84 here outside of music production with the ST
I have seen people try and state this as an alternative view but it's not one I subscribe too as it makes zero sense. Plus having interviewed and chatted to lots of people who worked for Atari at that time they all suggested that the 7800 actually sold really well, just not as well as Nintendo.
RE Brazillian stuff, please check your globe. You should probably lament we "never got them in the North", not the West. They are the west, mostly southern hemisphere.
América Latina e África só são considerados "ocidente" quando é conveniente. Não que ser considerado Ocidente ou não faça muita diferença aqui pro Brasil.
I wanted one of these over the NES for Christmas of 1987. I always thought the built-in game idea was so cool. Ended up.with NES though. My mom said she couldn't find the sms anywhere.
@skywarp727 SMS/NES both great consoles with fantastic backbcatalogues. I'd been happy with either at the time, but we went the Amiga route.l, which in fairness was a great system for it's time - no regrets in choosing that bad boy.
My buddy got a Master System for Christmas but the game inside was cracked & didn't work. He was bummed out he could not play it on Christmas Morning! The next day i came over & he was showing me his gifts & showed me how he set up the Sega to the TV & turned it on as he was re-acting what he did & he hit the buttons just right to start the Snail Maze game! Our minds were blown away! What an epic day that was!
This console is VERY special, indeed. And considering the fact that I am Brazilian and had a version of it, the Super Compact, it's a no-brainer at all. Those amazing facts show how much the success of the Sega Master System doesn't have to be measured by its commercial failure in the USA or in its home country, Japan. Europe, Brazil, South Korea or Australia have shown their love to this marvelous Sega console in different ways. Tec Toy here in Brazil made an exceptional work to secure a lifetime for this console on an unprecedented level, in spite of economic adversities in the country. So, I am glad to watch here and learn a bit more about one of my all-time videogame consoles!
I found that most of the Master System videos out there approach the console from totally the wrong perspective, probably because a lot of them are made by Americans. Nobody is interested in how it got "destroyed by the NES" or "didn't have any Konami game, which means it sucks!". I wanted to make a video that celebrated the Master System, not diminished it.
@@TheLairdsLair The fact is that most video game channels (Specially retro) are just buzzfeed and don't really care about facts, just to reinforce the wrong ideas that people already have just to make the audience feels fine with their own ignorance.
The issue with the MS in the US is that the console is pretty obscure and even older players that were kids in the 80s and early 90s are experiencing it just now. You will never have the experience of playing a full championship between twenty friends in the same room with Jogos de Verão (California Games... that were limited to 12 or 16 players, I believe, but we gave our way around) or in anyone of the countless multiplayer games in the console. I can't say that local multiplayer with the Master System were better than on the Famicom, but it was, by far, the best in the Master System. Other than that, the console carry no nostalgia to these folks, so they see the games for what they are now, not by how good they were in the time. For example, Phantasy Star were my first RPG (played in a friend's console) just because it were the very first one translated to Portuguese (by Tec Toy) and that made JRPG be one of my very favorite genres... American players had a lot of good JRPGs on the NES, independently of these be or not better than Phantasy Star, but Americans will obviously carry a shtload of nostalgia by those other games and will create pour comparisons.
Thank you very much for delivering a non-biased video about this console. I can say that it was so good that even being a Nintendo player I just loved to play on the Master System even back in the time.
Cheers!
@GCSoundArtifacts is it still popular in Brazil, or have other consoles taken it's crown in recent years?
@TheLairdsLair first time I played Columns was on my exes SMS - absolutely loved it.
Pissed her off too as I beat her high score on my very first go. 😇
@@VampireJack10 Popularity? That's a good question. You can tell that it's quite accessible to buy the newest model of Master System, the Evolution which has 132 games in the memory, and, yup, it's pretty cheap to buy one for R$360. Definetely affordable for the lower middle class. If it's popular among younger people, it's something that I'm not sure about because cellphone games are VERY popular here. I think the normal public that buys a Master System Evolution isn't interested in retrogames, but probably a parent who wants to build a bond with his/her child through a video game. It's not highly publicized, but something of a niche market. But, yeah, maybe Tectoy knows that they have a retrogaming demand. (By the way, Tectoy wants to return to the front row with a PC Console called Zeenix, which hasn't been commercialized yet...)
Foreigners mustn't have the wrong idea that the youngest generation of Brazilian gamers doesn't know the Xbox Series, the newest iteration of Playstation, a Nintendo Switch, or even a PC Gamer. The thing is: the newest generation of consoles and computers here is expensive for the average people, not affordable unless somebody with a better economic resource offers the chance to play. So... There's no crown to be offered to a specific console. Those are different times. Cellphones with Android reign supreme here.
However, the thing is: a Master System Evolution is still cheaper than the cheapest new phone, or equivalent to a used one.
My brothers and I had a Master System Super Compact (wireless Tec Toy exclusive), and my fondest memory was (unintentionally) hijacking the TV broadcast of my neighbors with SMS gameplay, and they ringing our doorbell in mass to tell my father that our video game was interrupting their TV shows and demanding him to do something about it. My father then banned us from using the wireless mode (you could still connect directly to the TV by connecting the wireless receiver RF cable directly into the handheld's antennae port, making it essentially "docked"). What makes me flabbergasted is how the neighbors figured it we were the culprits, considering we didn't just go telling everyone every new purchase we had. However, whenever my parents weren't at home, we would play in wireless mode: one of us played in the bedroom TV while the other two of us watched in the large living room TV 😅
I love this! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Reminds me of a similar story of mine. When I was about 14 we had new neighbours move in and they went out and bought a new TV and it was the exact same one we had. Our houses were semi-detached (so joined together) and their TV was just by their front bay window so I could stand by our window and change the channels on their TV. I had to stop doing it though because their dad got so angry!
I used to buy all my SMS games from Toys’R’Us for about 9.00-14.00
I had to get rid of my SMS II when downsizing probably getting on 10 years ago now. Still got my Alex Kidd and The Ninja carts amoungst others mind, such a good console.
My friend Dan had this when we were kids but only cause his mum couldn't get him a mega drive til a few years later. But what a consolation console 😅 this was so good, even Sonic 2 with the infamous hang glider
I'm glad you showed the box for the original Master System that had Alex Kidd in Miracle World built in, as there are quite a few people out there that don't believe Sega's mascot at the time was available as a built-in title prior to the launch of the Master System II.
In Brazil, the MS was sold since day one with Miracle World. It could not be as good as a mascot as Sonic or Mario (considerably better than Polygon Man, for sure lol), but for us the character was the face of SEGA until the hedgehog arrived and Miracle World were good enough to even be considered by a lot of folks as a superior game compared with the first two Super Mario (the original and the Doki Doki Panic reskin)
Mine wasn't. North America, here. The Snail game was built in mine, not Alex Kidd. I think they didn't start building AK in until a bit later (I got mine for Christmas 1987.)
Edit- I just went and checked my current Master System, and it has the Snail game, no Alex Kidd.
@@kutulukutuHere in Sweden someone had the snail game. I wonder how they thought. What's the symbology between snail vs Alex 🤔🧐 The Sega has it's pros ofc vs Nintendo and i like it. Nintendo has more feelings for me 😊
It's organic and familiar.
Here in the states I only knew two people who owned one and was never able to get any time with it. A real shame, it looks like, and I’d love to snag one at some point!
I love and grew up with the Master System here in Australia it was my second console coming from Atari 2600 on to my master system console was amazing back then as a kid especially me growing up during the good days arcading gaming and I still remember when dad got me my master system with three games they were Wonder Boy , Double Dragon , Black Belt , I was like wow i get to play arcade games at home seeing Wonder Boy really impressed me as it was a really good port for the MS console and Double Dragon was just good 2 player fun with my family friends and neighbours and Black Belt was so cool too the MS console holds special memories for me I will never forget so thank you for this great video on my favourite console 👍
4 minutes in and I have to say, your video is very well done. I'm glad UA-cam recommended this one to me.
The Master System is a special console to me. I love seeing videos about it.
Well done and take care.
i'm looking into picking up a master system soon. it's one of the few consoles i missed out on entirely.
It's a commonly said thing, but I'd definitely buy an SMS Mini on day one of release.
Come on SEGA - MAKE IT 'APPEN!
Apparently, Sega did (or does?) want to release an SG-1000 mini, that would include games from the rest of the "family", since the success of the MD Mini, but thanks to the "wonderful" idea of making several surveys, they have refrained from doing this anytime soon as the results always end up with the Saturn and Dreamcast being what people want as minis, something that probably won't be possible cheaply before 2027, the Saturn probably until 2035. No, FPGAs are not an option, minis have to be cheap, not cost more than your current mobile (and it seems DC FPGA emulation is still in early stages. Yes, emulation. Deal with it!).
My favorite 8 bit console of them all, thank you Laird! 😁
*amazing video sir and info too! One of my favorite systems! Btw there is a 8-Bit FM adaptor you can buy for GENESIS so you don't have to take anything apart!* ⭐️
In the US Nintendo more or less locked Sega out of many retailers by using threats of cutting them off from new supplies of NES games and hard ware which was a huge seller, It wasn't until the Genesis that Sega was able to crack that stranglehold. In the UK and the rest of Europe it was different as the company in charge of NES distrubution screwed up the entirely thing and Sega took advantage.
Great now I'm going to have Teddy Boy stuck in my head
A very unknown fact and one that, AFAIK, is not very well documented (if at all!) is how the SMS actually beat Nintendo in Mexico... at least on legal channels.
First some context. For nearly 20 years, the Mexican government adopted politics that limited capitalism in a huge way; imports of finished goods were limited and highly taxable, expropriation of enterprises and media happened almost every day and goods had to be manufactured, at least in their final stages, within the country to be legally attainable. This caused a huge lag between what was sold in the US and Japan, for an instance, the crash did not happen here, however, we did have the side effect of smugglers getting in liquidation huge lots of unsold Atari and Intellivision hardware and software to be sold cheaply, which created a second generation videogame boom around 1984 and 1985. The NES, or rather the Famicom, started to be known in 1986 but as arcade machines with bootleg Famicom consoles inside, as even those were very expensive.
By 1987, some policies were relaxed and more imports were now attainable. Atari had a golden age selling consoles and computers legally in stores. A distributing company was established around that time and they would import the Sega Master System and later the Genesis, its name was DISAM or Distribudora Sega de México (Sega distributor of Mexico).
DISAM went all out by having an association with Mexico´s only private television broadcaster at the time, Televisa. They had adverts within the daily kids programming on their dedicated channel for that, as prizes in game shows and as rentals on Televisa's own version of Blockbuster Video.
Around 88 and 89, the Famicom became widely known thanks to those bootleg arcades, smugglers started to import from China the bootleg systems and finally, a Japanese medical instruments importer decided to import the American NES and Game Boy lines legally within the country. Although this was the beginning of the end for DISAM, the war would go on for a couple of years, after all, there were quite a few SMS owners, and the Genesis was released just a few months after its US debut and it would also gain a lot of fans.
By this point you might be wondering, "well, in the end they caught on with the US and Nintendo reigned triumphant, so, what's the big deal?" The deal was DISAM didn't imported from Sega of America, they imported from Sega Enterprises; C. Itoh would also do the same, getting the games from Japan but keeping ties with Nintendo of America, in fact, TMNT IV was released a month before it hit the stores in the US, Mexico and LA got the first 2 ISSS Konami games and almost got Parodius, Dragon Ball Z2 and Sailor Moon for the SNES.
Because of this and the short-lived but strong popularity of the SMS, when Sega dropped the deal with Tonka and there was this hiatus between that and the release of the Genesis, DISAM kept importing games from Japan, but since there were no American releases, they got European ones instead. For about 2 years, all new SMS releases in Mexico were European, so in Mexico you could get games like Dynamite Dux, Laser Ghost, Psycho Fox (before the US got it when Sega briefly revived it), Shadow Dancer, The Cyber Shinobi, G-LOC, and many more that went unreleased in the US plus several reprints from Europe. You can actually still find in the wild, although they don't come out often, later Taito European releases such as Taito Chase H.Q., Bubble Bobble and Sagaia.
By far is not much as the Brazilian phenomenon, but it's interesting that the Sega products, at least briefly, beat Nintendo just a few kilometers to the south from the US and even had more games.
This is a wonderful story that I have never heard before! I really appreciate you sharing it!
A Sega Master System video sponsored by a Sega Master book? How befitting.
1:17 - Your channel has been around for a while so I had assumed you had already covered an amazing fact video on the Master System, just way before I had even subscribed. Indeed, very surprising it is only now being covered.
3:31 - It's rather fun seeing the evolution of the controllers from Sega Mark 1, to II and then Master System. The way it shifts from the Gen 2 standard of controller to eventually become the Gen 3 style of controller like the NES and (EU/later) 7800 controllers.
6:23 - A sensible decision, given a lot of their game making approach was making console versions of their pre-existing arcade games.
8:26 - That was very Mario inspired at first... and then the Super Mario World Rex marches on screen looking straight ripped out of the SNES game.
11:17 - Interesting to hear, and rather befitting the British mentality of the day. It's strange though; I've seen Sega Master System cartridge games pop in retro retailers and stores before, but never any of the Sega cards. I suppose it's harder to protect them when loose compared to the cartridges, so many are likely lost.
17:04 - Tec Toy clearly put a lot of work into these ports; the Monica game changed a lot of the sprites to get it accurate and they had to sort the Game Gear's wider colour palette when porting said games to the Master System.
18:38 - So was that an added cost to the Mega Drive (having Master System backwards compatibility built in) or did it not add on much of a price difference? Interesting they'd design the Mega Drive to have that capability given the Master System only sold well in Brazil and Europe, regions that never seemed to be Sega's focus, despite them finding success there.
23:15 - Nice to have such a handy side-by-side breakdown of the sales here. What a difference in sales. I heard the NES only got competitive with the Master System once, and that was with the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles game bundle that the NES had.
I love the Master System. I never completed Alex Kidd as a kid but recently completed it using save states. I think that still counts as completing it imo. 😊
🇬🇧
my 3rd favorite console. didnt pick mine up until xmas of 2012. my favorite gam is wonderboy 2. great video like always
Not sure the SMS gets as much love and respect as it should - it was a big thing! Well, outside the US (where most retro channels originate so they just bang on and on (and on) about the NES..) Met quite a few people who had a Master System growing up here in the UK vs, well, no one with a Nintendo.
Lol, I bought the book and I was surprized to see that you wrote the book while reading it. I watched your videos, but missed that part lol. I also learned that you wrote for Retro Gamer (I was subscribed to that magazine).
Yeah I wrote for Retro Gamer for over 7 years, did 50+ articles and had 3 covers.
Hope you enjoyed the book!
@@TheLairdsLair I would pay premium to have a hard cover of your book with better paper and colors, like Bitmapbook quality. I am getting richer as modern games are trash and I save a lot of money by not buying them lol.
I have had a few people asking for this and it is an option, so I will investigate further when I get a chance to see if the costs are viable.
My brother had the 3d glasses, they hurt the bridge of our nose and gave us headaches but we still played it and had fun.
Endless hours of playing, infinite memories about me and my cousin trying to beat games after games! The various Alex Kidd games, the amazing Sonic games, Shadow Dancer, The Cyber Shinobi, Master of Darkness, The Incredible Hulk (stunning graphics for an 8-bit system), Dynamite Dux, Dynamite Duke, the incredible Disney games, Shinobi, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, Dick Tracy, Ghouls & Ghosts, but the list can go on and on and on...
This has been the console of we european people. Nintendo had a real chance here only with the unbeatable Game Boy or the Super Nintendo, but the Mega Drive was way more appealing for us, maybe because it was more arcade-oriented, I don't know!
There's a lot of evidence that shows that arcade game conversions were a huge draw for European gamers, Sega/Virgin very much capitalised on that.
@@TheLairdsLair oh yes, we saw that. In fact, arcade game conversion have been the true heart of Mega Drive's first catalog. Years after their first release, those games still got huge sales (judging from what magazines reported about games' sales for month). Growing up, Mega Drive has become my favourite retro console also due to its amazing built-in FM Yamaha synthesizer: the Mega Drive is the reason why today I love having fun with synths and I love creating various kinds of eletronic music! 😍
I was addicted to spy vs spy. I had the game card. 💙
The SG-1000 used the same GPU as the ColecoVision, the MSX 1 and the Texas Instrument TI-99/4. My understanding is that the GPU inside the SMS is an improvement upon the Texas Instrument GPU. The SMS features smooth hardware bidirectional scrolling (very similar to Nintendo's) and multicolor sprites.
Well yeah, I talked about that in great detail in the video.
Not quite. The SMS seems to be its own thing but includes a compatible graphics mode which is not quite compatible. Most colors are off and some graphics glitches appear. A Coleco to SMS adapter was released this year, but it makes the not so good graphics compatibility even more noticeable. Makes me wonder if it was an afterthought.
Fm sound should have been in the western version. 😢
“Alex Kidd in Miracle World, undoubtedly the best game in the popular Alex Kidd franchise”
SO MANY DOUBTS. Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is a far, FAR better game than Miracle World.
The Master System was my favorite system I ever owned. I spent hours playing Teddy Boy, Alex Kidd and Miracle Warriors. The great thing was that the US system was not region locked and would convert PAL to NTSC so I was able to get games from all over the world. Too bad I lost my collection in a house fire…
@NickD2112 now that house fire thing sucks - lucky for you to survive it though, so there's the silver lining.
It is region locked, although nearly all of PAL and US NTSC games shared the same region code, albeit certain incompatibility issues with a few games occur.
The reason why converters for the Japanese SMS to play western SMS games exist but not the other way around is because the BIOS can check regions (including US and PAL) and if it doesn't find certain bits in the header, which would not be present at all in all SG-1000 and Mark III software, the console will display a Software Error message.
The cards fit without problems, but will always show that message, making them unplayable outside Japan.
Whoa! Everyone pause the video @ 22:57! Read the entire advertisement. Man, I thought Sega pushed the advertising envelope here in the US. Had that ad run here in the States parents would have formed a posse complete with guns and horses to run Sega out of town. People may have died for that one. ;)
Fun Fact: Sega released the Master System in Japan in 1987 with enhancements not seen in other regions. It had the 9 channel FM sound chip built in, a rapid fire switch, and a dedicated port for the 3D glasses.
Sega/Virgin's UK advertising was really edgy at the time and it definitely helped them.
I did talk about the FM audio in the Japanese SMS in the video.
Loved it
Given Sega's success in Europe and other regions I've always wondered why they were so obsessed with taking over the US, to the point that obsession contributed to them leaving the hardware market.
Yep, I've said similar things about Atari too, who also experienced my more success in Europe during the late 80s, but Jack Tramiel was just obsessed with breaking America.
I finally have to ask: What's your intro sample from?
The Atari Lynx port of STUN Runner
I was just wondering that at the start of this vid!
Choplifter is a fun game 🚁
I must have played Alex kidd in miracle world and Sonic the hedgehog on the master system more than any other games.
Not gonna lie, I like more the design of the Mark III than the Master System.
But I'm not sure if it uses the same size of cartridges
Different size, Mark III cartridges are the same as the SG-1000
Ermegerd……praise the Laird!
Could the system have been expanded via the card slot? Like the PC Engine's Arcade card with MMC/DSP type capabilities.
No sadly.
The PC-Engine's card slot (and the SMS's) is just like any other cartridge slot. You could add whatever you want if you can talk over the cart interface. But the Arcade Card is just extra RAM.
SG-1000 had 16KB of dedicated VRAM like every TMS9918 platform.
3:04 This is fake news. The Vectrex had a 3D adapter way before the Master System.
Yes but it's a bit different, the Vectrex wasn't colour for a start.
@@TheLairdsLair True, but they still weren't 'the first videogames ever in 3D' as they claimed.
There's one inaccuracy in the video. the Atari 7800 definitely did not outsell the master system in the United States, as shown in your graph of the sales figures. its a very common quoted figure but Atari never released their sales numbers, so the common belief now is that the 3.7 million sales figure is of *all* Atari 7800 products, including things like games and extra controllers. i wouldn't be shocked if the sales number was actually higher in Europe because Atari was essentially a dead brand after 84 here outside of music production with the ST
I have seen people try and state this as an alternative view but it's not one I subscribe too as it makes zero sense. Plus having interviewed and chatted to lots of people who worked for Atari at that time they all suggested that the 7800 actually sold really well, just not as well as Nintendo.
Wow the print looks small in that book
It's not, it's bigger than a lot of books this size.
Starts at 3:14
No it doesn't. The intro has important context.
16:37 Master System Handy? 😳🍆👋
RE Brazillian stuff, please check your globe. You should probably lament we "never got them in the North", not the West. They are the west, mostly southern hemisphere.
América Latina e África só são considerados "ocidente" quando é conveniente. Não que ser considerado Ocidente ou não faça muita diferença aqui pro Brasil.
Been looking forward to watching this 😊
I wanted one of these over the NES for Christmas of 1987. I always thought the built-in game idea was so cool. Ended up.with NES though. My mom said she couldn't find the sms anywhere.
@skywarp727 SMS/NES both great consoles with fantastic backbcatalogues. I'd been happy with either at the time, but we went the Amiga route.l, which in fairness was a great system for it's time - no regrets in choosing that bad boy.