Sega Master System

Monday 01 Dec 2008

Our gaming hobby might be movie like in this day and age, but it is because of consoles pushing the limits by outclassing each other with each new generation that this industry evolves so quickly. Some of you have been with us since the Atari 2600 days in the 70’s and some might have only joined recently without any knowledge of where it all started. Come back every week, as we will be looking at each console and what exactly it did that made us buy into it and how it helped the industry to become the monster we know and enjoy today.

SEGA Master System

Intro:

With the success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) SEGA, which was founded in 1940 as Standard Gaming to provide Americans with coin operated entertainment, realized that they were missing out on a Golden era in the making and in 1986 joined the party with their console - SEGA Master System (SMS). Two Japanese video game powerhouses up against each other was just the thing the industry needed to get the ball rolling.

Look and Design:

When it comes to the look of the original SMS it goes without saying that it looked exceptionally ugly. Everything looked so…square and boring. It had two controller ports, a reset button, a card slot and a power button on the front and that was it really. The SEGA Master System 2 (SMS2) eventually launched in 1990 with a complete redesign, a sleek design minus the reset button missing.

The controllers did not change one bit though. The D-pad with 2 buttons, pretty much copying the NES pads, did seem favourable on the thumbs and so did the buttons. They just seemed softer when pressed. Not just that, by the time the SMS2 launched in 1990 SEGA had already launched their follow-up system, the SEGA Mega Drive, and the ports had not changed one bit. Some people found that they could stick the SMS controller into the ports of the Mega Drive for games that required no more than 2 buttons to be used, like Sonic.

The Games:

Make no mistake; the SMS was up against a monster, one they had not yet encountered up to that point. The NES had an exceptional library and in order to take that on you would need some spectacular games. As Nintendo had their mascot (Mario), SEGA had to come up with their own concept of a mascot, that being Alex the Kid. Like Mario he could jump, but he could not jump on the head of foes, he had to smack them with his oversized hand. It was very unique but could not quite live up to what Mario had invented three years earlier. So things were tough on sales as Nintendo had already secured most of the world with smaller countries gobbling up the SMS.

SEGA then turned to what they did best – Coin Operated Games (or more simply, arcade games) - and decided to bring some arcade classics to the SMS. Even though they weren’t exact ports, they were as close as you could get at the time in your living room. Hangon, Outrun, After Burner, Space Harrier and Thunder Blade are some of those arcade games that to this day are household names in the gaming industry. Let’s not forget one of the stellar releases on the console – Wonderboy. Yes, the NES had Wonderboy but it goes without saying that the SMS version was the one to own and far closer to the arcade relative than the NES version. Sonic also made an appearance on the SMS but unfortunately it did not really have the technology to take full advantage of this hedgehog that was after speed.

With the release of the SMS2 Alex the Kid in Miracle World was built into the actual hardware which helped with some extra sales near the end of the days for the console. However, with the 16bit era around the corner the old and slow 8bit era had rapidly come to an end, but not before leaving us with some great 8bit games to treasure for years to come.

Add Ons:

Like the NES they also designed a gun named The SEGA Light Phazer. It was used in similar ways to that of the NES games and it actually had a more responsive trigger and more accurate targeting. Unfortunately it had very little games that took full advantage of this pheripheral with Rambo 3, Shooting Gallery, Gangster Town, Safari Hunt and Rescue Mission being the only few games being worthwhile in any way. I’d opt for Duck Hunt any day thank you.

As mentioned earlier, the original Master System had a card slot. Trying to be original they invented a set of 3D glasses which had a shutter system closing the left and right lens rapidly creating a 3D effect. However, only eight SMS games being compatible with it and when the SMS2 launched the slot was removed.

Overall:

The SEGA Master System was SEGA’s entry into the Household Video Game market. SEGA learned many lessons within the first three years or so which would later show with their next generation console, the SEGA Mega Drive. It had some classic games like Alex the Kid, Wonderboy and the awesome arcade ports, but it was too little too late to catch up with Nintendo’s NES. Finding SMS hardware and games out there in this day and age is very time consuming but at least this console cracked the nod to feature on the Nintendo Wii’s virtual console where many of the classics can be downloaded.

If you missed the first two weeks of the series, check out the Atari 2600 and NES as well.