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+--- Thread: The Sega Genesis US Release 20th Anniversary Celebration Thread (/showthread.php?tid=5346)
The Sega Genesis US Release 20th Anniversary Celebration Thread - A Black Falcon - 14th August 2009
I meant to post this at TC too earlier today, but didn't get around to it... but here it is. It's still the 14th, so it's accurate. :)
Yes, the Sega Genesis came out twenty years ago today, August 14th 1989. The system went on to great success, leading the generation for about five years before Sega's mistakes finally allowed for Nintendo to sneak past in 1994. The system is the most successful second-place major console ever worldwide, behind only the handheld PSP in this category, and ahead of the third-place second place system, the N64. The system sold 19 or 20 million systems in the US alone and somewhere between 36.5 and 40 million systems worldwide (see here for proof), versus the SNES's 24 million US and 49 million worldwide.
(The N64 was 20.63 million US, 32 million worldwide, for comparison, using Nintendo's official shipped numbers. The Genesis numbers are just estimates as unlike Nintendo, Sega has never released actual sales numbers for its systems.)
Supported with new releases in the US from 1989 to 1998, it had an around ten year lifespan. While the Japanese version, the Megadrive, had done poorly, losing to NEC's PC Engine (TurboGrafx), in America Sega quickly, and surprisingly to many analysts, crushed NEC and took the next-gen lead. They did not get past the NES for the first year, thanks to games like 1990's Super Mario Bros. 3, but clearly led among next-gen owners. Even the release of the SNES in mid 1991 would not change that, as Sega released its big title at around teh same time, Sonic the Hedgehog. Sega's high point came after this, from 1991-1993. Sonic took over America and the Genesis was the number one system in the country. Sega also released two addons for the system, the Sega CD in 1992 (late 1991 in Japan) and the Sega 32X in 1994, several console revisions, and a handheld version of the system in 1995, the Nomad. The system initially came with Altered Beast, and later Sonic the Hedgehog once it was released in 1991. Sega-16's interview with Kalinske where he describes convincing Sega of Japan to let him give away the system's biggest smash-hit game for free with system sales is interesting. That interview is here, and it should be required reading! http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page.php?id=214&title=Interview:%20Tom%20Kalinske. "Sega does what Nintendon't" and better sports and action games marked it as the 'older gamers' system', though for Sega this mostly meant teenagers more than anything; Sony would expand gaming's base even farther. But compared to Nintendo's focus on children and 'all ages' games, Sega was expanding the base by aiming straight at people who considered Nintendo's focus to be aiming too young for them. Sonic was the perfect mascot to succeed with this teen audience and the attitude of the time. Here's Sega-16's history of the series: http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page.php?id=99&title=History%20of:%20The%20Sonic%20The%20Hedgehog%20Series. Sonic 2, which came a year later, was if anything even better than the first, and by 1993 Sega's marketshare was 50% industrywide.
The 32X marked the end of Sega's lead, however, as Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country showed how you didn't need a very expensive addon to get great graphics from your older system, and gamers got tired of Sega's splitting up the market between too many systems. Splitting Sonic 3 into two parts, Sonic 3 and Sonic the Hedgehog, much have increased sales, but also did cause some ill will once people realized that Sonic & Knuckles was just the second half of Sonic 3, but they had to pay full price for it. The failure of the live-action-video FMV game market in 1994-1995 also hurt Sega, as the Sega CD was best known for those titles. In addition, an internal war between Sega's American and Japanese divisions sapped Sega's strength as the fighting led to competing ideas of gaming's future and even consoles. Wanting to move on from the failed Japanese Megadrive to the hopefully more promising Saturn, Sega of Japan halted game development for all three systems in late 1995, along with the Master System and Game Gear. The last Genesis (Megadrive) game came out in Japan in late 1996. Sega of America continued Genesis and Game Gear game development until 1997, however, and there was one third party release in 1998, but it still meant fewer titles than before. The last few years were not the system's best, but still saw a few great titles, such as the Vectorman games for instance, Sega's answer to DKC graphically.
The Genesis (Megadrive) saw even more success in Brazil, with the last title there not being released until 2000.
I didn't own a Genesis myself during its lifespan, but I didn't have any game platforms other than PC and Game Boy during its lifespan. I did know several people who owned a Genesis though, versus very few with SNES, so the vast majority of my gaming time at friends' houses that wasn't on PC, GB, or NES (as with most people then I imagine, I knew a lot of people with a NES) was on Genesis. I've always been a PC and Nintendo fan first, but I liked the Genesis too, from after Sonic's release at least. I have little memory of it before then, but Sonic was an amazing game I've always loved. I finally got a Genesis in 2006 and have a good-sized collection now. The system just has too many great games to list them all, the list would probably go on into the hundreds... :)
I've also never been sure which system of that generation I like better, SNES or Genesis... they're both such great systems and compliment eachother so well, with different strengths and weaknesses. Really, just get both.
The best Genesis-specific site is http://www.sega-16.com, which is an extremely good site I highly recommend visiting. The top highlight of their content, I would say, are the many interviews with people who worked on the Genesis in some way, from Sega of America personnel (up to the various presidents) and various American and European Genesis developers. They don't have much stuff with Japanese developers, presumably because of the language barrier, but still it's a fantastic resource for anyone interested in the system.
The other top resource for Sega history is probably The Scribe's classic articles on the history of Sega from its founding to the end of 2000, written back in 2001-2002. This can be found here: http://www.goodcowfilms.com/farm/games/www.eidolons-inn.net/segabase/SegaBase-Genesis.html It is too bad that he never finished the Dreamcast section, from January 2001 to its end, and the entire set of articles is extremely biased, but still the sheer amount of depth really makes them must-reads for anyone who hasn't before and has any interest.
I'd post screenshots and such, but while I like writing posts I don't really like searching for screenshots, so I won't do that and hope someone else will, because this post needs some. :)
Also, where's that post with the awesome list of all Genesis games ranked by how genre and good the person thought they were... I need to link that too.
In conclusion, go buy some Genesis games, or a Genesis if you don't have one. It's one of the cheapest classic consoles around, and shouldn't cost you more than $25 or so for the system. Games are even more affordable; as very, very few US releases cost more than $8 or $10 so, in my experience. Most are well under that. Plus, there are lots of really good games... you really can't go wrong getting a Genesis.