I grew up in the UK and I always remember seeing the Mega drive/Genesis and Master system everywhere. I didn't know any kids with the NES, I knew a couple with the Snes, but mostly they had a Sega console.

@iwanttocomplain

9 ай бұрын

That is also my experience. So I was surprised to find the figures for sales in the UK for the two consoles are almost identical. I don’t remember anyone ever even mentioning the NES. I sh*t you not. I did see one in a department store with Mario Bros but it was a very old game by then.. I thought I saw one through a window once. Or at least a paused game screen of just blue and a very simple top of a castle or something and then around a month later the same image was on the screen. Very strange. Some people had the SNES but it was uncool to announce publicly that you had one. Maybe that is brand loyalty. Maybe.

@michaelcurtis8635

9 ай бұрын

It was rich kids. For some reason they were pricing the games at like £50 here. Not £50 in todays money, £50 in 1989 money. Whoever was doing the NES' local distribution in Europe was every bit as nuts as Tomko was doing Sega's in the US. Maybe more so. Didn't they also try to distribute the NES through Boots for some reason? It was all very weird. But, Mario 3 got the same McDonald's promotion it got in the US, we had the Mario Cartoons, and I vaguely remember seeing a bundle with Turtles being pushed hard in toyshops when that was at its peak around 1990. So I could see how there's be a window in 1990-1991 where it'd get a surge in sales from people who could afford it. And it's not like the MS had some crazy lead, Sega may have been 'winning' the console space but way more people were trying to load a taped copy of Karateka copied from a copy of a copy on their HiFi onto a second hand C64 with a dodgy tape deck that stank of cigarette smoke and wondering why it was crashing half way through loading.

@iwanttocomplain

9 ай бұрын

@@michaelcurtis8635 I think in 1990 the NES was in about 6th place after ZX Spectrum, C64, CPC464, SMS, Atari ST and Amiga.

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

Y'all had a very beautiful Super NES console and y'all ignore it while we in NA had an ugly version but we still cherish it. If Nintendo knew now what they didn't know back then, then we would had gotten that version instead.

@karlaboerger3619

9 ай бұрын

Where kids withvNES in UK where evil to you?

Sega Master system was an interesting console to me because it had a built in hidden game if you pressed the correct buttons when you powered it on. When you pressed the correct combo, you got to guide a snail through a maze. Very few systems did things like that.

@Lightblue2222

9 ай бұрын

Nice. The Atari 7800 "European version" also has built in Asteroids if you power on without a cartridge.

@nahumgardner

9 ай бұрын

That snail music always gets stuck in my head.

@kurtmager1626

9 ай бұрын

The Vectrex had a resident game as well. Power it on without a cartridge, and the game MINESTORM loads up. It was really great clone of Asteroids.

@FoxUnitNell

9 ай бұрын

One model had super hang on and shoot out included in the system plus the hidden game.

@HB-mj2jz

9 ай бұрын

@@FoxUnitNell The master system II had Alex the Kid in Miracle world as built in game

11:18 Sega didn't really abandon the Sega Master System in 1988. It was the year of the release of the Mega Drive in Japan, so their obvious focus was on that. They continued to support the SMS in the USA, and in fact, when the Sega Genesis was released in August 1989, we also saw them release a $35 Power Base Convertor add-on, to play SMS carts on the Genesis (which already contained the necessary Z-80 processor). We also saw some of the best SMS games release at this time, including the excellent Mickey Mouse and Sonic games.

@pferreira1983

9 ай бұрын

This video is filled with mistakes like that.

@dtester

9 ай бұрын

Yup, and the SMS2 was released after the Genesis in NA in 1990. It was intended to be the budget option for Sega in parallel with the Genesis and it got a LOT of Genesis game ports.

@uhhh_adam

9 ай бұрын

Hilarious when youtubers do that lmao

@pferreira1983

9 ай бұрын

@@uhhh_adam Not so hilarious when this ignorance is being peddled around KZread to gamers wanting to learn accurate history.

@georgezee5173

7 ай бұрын

The Sega Master System (II) was my first console and I can confirm they kept releasing new videogames as late as 1992. For instance, my parents bought me "Sonic The Hedgehog 2", which was released late 1992.

Don't forget sega moved their hardware between europe & brazil doing 17 mill,so technecally they did not fail.

@LelandReview

9 ай бұрын

I like how in Brazil SEGA never stopped making consoles. They won the console war in that region by a mile.

@slow71971

9 ай бұрын

They put up their sega wall dam.@@LelandReview

@piratesephiroth

9 ай бұрын

@@LelandReview officially yes, because Nintendo didn't have any presence here until the 90s. There's no way the SMS sold better than all the unnoficial NES clones released in the late 80s combined.

@dtester

9 ай бұрын

@@piratesephirothActually it might have.

@sloppynyuszi

9 ай бұрын

@@LelandReviewto be honest Sega didn’t really make anything there. Tectoy licensed the console and that’s it. Sega just lets them run with it and takes in some royalties. It’s weird that in any nostalgia thing Sega is involved, their success in Brazil gets no mention.

You can't blame the SMS for the Wonderboy music, that is 100% from the arcade

The Master System did extremely well here in Australia. I got a Master System II in 1992 and the software was still selling quite well in game stores. Sega marketed the Master System over here as the cheaper alternative to the Mega Drive which was very expensive at the time and I think with a lot of parents this idea worked. The games were always packaged with a Sega catalogue flyer in them, one side was white with the Master System software and turning it over it was black displaying the Mega Drive software. The white Master System side always marketed the console as the cheaper affordable option. I remember the kid next door to me at the time wanted a SNES but his mum didn't know what that was and got him a Master system II console instead as it was cheaper. Although this example was in vein, it worked in Sega's favour lol.

The global picture of the Master System is totally different. The Sega Master System was more popular than the NES in Europe and the Brazilian market is a thing of it's own and is still very active. The active shudder 3-D is what sold me in it's day and it still wows me today. But of course there's Rad Racer on the NES.....

@ostiariusalpha

9 ай бұрын

If you look at the numbers, the NES came pretty close to catching up with the Master System in many European countries after a slow start. It wasn't crushed out of the Western and Northern European markets by Sega the way the SMS was pushed aside in North America. And Nintendo also had Kirby, I would have killed for the SMS to have a game of that caliber.

@williamoverton7775

9 ай бұрын

this is correct furthermore one of the release titles on genesis was the power adapter for master system games.

@vebxenon

9 ай бұрын

100% right. And most of the catalogue was released here in Europe only.

@Liam3072

9 ай бұрын

Yup, I feel this episode is a little too US-centric.

@schar1024

9 ай бұрын

The Video is absolutely right. Nintendo basically sabotaged the market by these exclusive rights. I also think that companies would've loved to resell their games to the Master System if they could've. This would've boosted the sales for the console. As EU kid, i'm glad i had the Master System II, since it really had some great games for it. But sadly the list is shorter than the List of Great NES Games, due their sabotage.

I had the SMS back during the old days. It was awesome. The 3D glasses my friend had for his SMS were so cool it is hard to describe. They were very impressive and made the Nintendo 3D games look like something form 100 years prior. The SMS was so underrated.

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

The Nintendo 3D games looking like that from 100 years prior (meaning the first of its kind) then it is an excellent achievement, if it was looking like that from 100 years later (meaning the last of its kind) then it would be a disappointment.

@michaelromeo9567

9 ай бұрын

@@VOAN The hardware , more colors onthe Master System. It's not just the 3D glasses etc..

I was one if those lucky kids back in the 80's who had a friend with a Master System. I had an NES and we would trade sometimes. Master System had some great games, and the graphics were mindblowing for its time. But the NES was the better console because it had more games and better games.

@fnln3011

9 ай бұрын

I like the jank 8bit sonic games that master system/game gear had

@solamon77

9 ай бұрын

Yeah, it did! I was a HUGE fan of Phantasy Star 1 and Spellcaster personally. I remember those 3d dungeons in Phantasy Star 1 blew me away. I had no idea how they were able to do something so advanced. It's like Pojr said, makes you wonder what the SMS was really capable of if they had developers really trying to push the consoles limits.

You could compare Psycho Fox on the SMS to Kid Kool on the NES, as they're very similar games from the same developer.

@blackmesacake5361

9 ай бұрын

Hello you!!!!

@GlensRetroShow

9 ай бұрын

Right on!

@pferreira1983

9 ай бұрын

SMS games always came across better regardless of the popularity.

Came so quick KZread still doesn't have the HD version lol

I could only use a Mater System once with a friend and it felt so futuristic with the 3D glasses and super cool design. I rememeber seeing the dog from shadow dancer barking at the intro and it was so amazing!

Cool to note that a lot of SG1000 games can actually be played on master system via something like a flash cart. But yea, I've personally always preferred the master system to NES, just because I prefer consoles with smaller, more concise libraries.

I'm a Yankee and this is my favorite console. I wanted this in 86 and it was a spectacular Xmas when I did get it. I went from a C64 to this. All my friends had the Nintendo. The colors, speed, and abilities this has over the NES was not my only reason to get it. It was because I wanted Space Harrier. It did not disappoint. Years later I felt under represented as a gamer because this became an obscure system. Not many people I met in the gaming world in the 90's knew of it. I am glad and fortunate to have experience it! Long live the Sega Master System!

I spent my entire childhood in Brazil and it's hilarious to hear someone saying that the Master System has faded into obscurity when it's still manufactured and sold there to this day.

I remember seeing the Sega Master System in Toys R Us circulars all the time. Never knew anyone who owned it, as everyone I knew had the NES. Funny enough, I saw an unopened Sega Master System at a video game store almost a decade ago. I noticed on the box the Tomy logo, and my jaw dropped. It was that moment that I realized that the Sega Master System was distributed by Tomy in the States. Almost felt as if I was looking in those Toys R Us circulars again.

Not to be a stickler for details, but (4:22) most people in the USA didn't have a way to play the SMS' RGB output. This was more for JPN / EUR, with their SCART/RGB standard. We got svideo, and later on, component (YPbPr), which is nearly identical to RGB, later, with the PS2, Xbox, and GC (where the cable did the digital conversion). Also, the cables at 4:29 are not NES cables. (The NES didn't have a Nintendo Muti-out A/V, or stereo music, for that matter. It did some with a set of standard RCA style composite cables in all of the major USA boxed system sets (Deluxe, Action, Sports, and so on). The SMS only included the RF adapter, and many users just stuck with that. -MattH

Little bit of context. Nobody in North America owned a TV with RGB or Component input in the 80s. Almost everybody was still using the RF coax input. If your TV was a little newer and fancier you might have had a composite input at best but only if your TV was made in 1987 or newer, that’s about it. You might have had an S-Video connector at the very end of the 80s but only on the highest end sets after around 1989 or so but barely anyone owned those. The reality is though that almost everybody still connected consoles to TVs in North America using the RF switchbox until around 1993/94. It was only then that a majority of people even had anything better than RF (composite) inputs on their TVs.

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

RGB in general was mostly used in PAL regions via SCART so it really doesn't matter. NA was in a poor recession in the 80s so coaxial was supported longer.

@TransCanadaPhil

9 ай бұрын

@@VOAN also I think for a lot of people that didn’t live in that era many don’t realize that the nature of consumer electronics was quite different before the internet. Products took a long time to gain mainstream acceptance and as a result companies supported them and tried to develop the market over a much longer period of time. No company today for instance would have had the patience to keep pushing CD until it finally caught mainstream acceptance in the early 90s (10 years after being introduced). Sure CDs were technically around in 1982 but no one owned them until 1989-1990. I find this is so hard to explain to the iPhone generation where if a product doesn’t succeed within a few months it’s now considered a failure and taken off the marketplace. The market was very different in that respect back then.

The master system was huge in the U.K. the nes was just something I played on demo units in some shops, I got a lot of love for the master system but on reflection the nes had loads more games Both great 8 bit consoles.

I had both systems as a kid. If you look at games that appeared on both systems, the SMS versions are usually significantly better than the NES counterparts (Double Dragon, Rampage, Paperboy and more). There were actually a lot of games released for the SMS, but they were just hard to find in the US. I think the system did better in Europe and Brazil.

You forgot to mention that even though the Sega Master System flopped in North America, in Brazil the console was massively popular and had way more games than in the NA and even Japanese market. Most of the SMS games in the Brazilian market were just 50hz SMS ports of Game Gear titles such as Streets of Rage 1 & 2, Sonic Chaos, Sonic Blast, Mortal Kombat 3, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 but there were a few exclusive one too such as Street Fighter II', a broken but impressive looking version of SFII for SMS.

Unfortunately POJR didn't dive quite deep enough here because i think we did find out what the Master System was truly capable of, but those games didn't reach American shores, in Europe the games kept coming up until 1996, and the game that always springs immediately to mind is Robocop VS Terminator, which could almost be mistaken for an early Mega Drive title, plenty of other titles too.

At 4:29 in the video, that is an SNES composite cable. The NES only had 1 cord for video and 1 cord for sounds.

Also of note the Master System used 3-bit color for its art tiles as opposed to the NES which used 2-bit. That means the sprite/background tiles of the Master System could use up to 8 colors, while the NES art assets were limited to 4 colors each. Hence why the Master System sprites seemed so much more detailed in spite of its palette having less than ten more colors than the NES.

@Nikku4211

9 ай бұрын

Actually, Master System tiles could use up to 16 colours and sprites up to 15.

@todesziege

5 ай бұрын

Like above said, it's 4-bit (16 colors, -1 for transparency). This is indeed the big difference between NES and SMS graphics, much more important than a few more colors in the master palette or just "on screen". Although the NES "colors on screen" number is generally even lower in practice, because with just 3 colors (the NES also loses one color for transparency) per palette you're going to end up with a lot of repeated colors (such as having black in most sprite palettes).

The SMS is one of my all time favorite systems. I actually had one when they were relevent. Sega themselves saw companies like Capcom, Konami, and Hudson as competition in the arcades and would not allow them to bring games to the SMS. What they failed to realize was that having Konami bringing an arcade perfect Contra to SMS would have probably helped them sell a few more systems. There is a story floating around that the creator of Final Fantasy wanted to bring it to SMS. He liked the superior hardware. Since Sega was working on Phantasy Star they would not allow it. Now in America it is a different story. Nintendo of America had clauses in the 3rd party contracts that if a game was brought out on NES it could not be ported any where else. This policy also hurt Atari as well. The decision to buy a system is always determined by the 1st party software. Nintendo had SMB, Zelda and Metroid. While Sega had Shinobi, Alex Kid, and Fantasy Zone (All wonderful games by the way). Shinobi and Fantasy Zone both actually appeared on the NES with Sega's blessing. Remember this is pre-Sonic Sega. This is the reason that Double Dragon and the few 3rd party titles that appeared on both systems had different features. In Europe and Brazil the SMS kicked the crud out of the NES. In Brazil Sega smartly allowed Tech Toy to have the distrubtion rights and it is still selling in mini form and getting new games in that region to this day, amazing I know. All I know is that I want an SMS Mini with all those cool European releases that we never got here. Long live the SMS, baby!!!!!!!!

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

Sega didn't see them as competition, they see Sega as competition. Sega didn't fix this issue until the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive arrival.

The Master System was my first ever console, loved it so much. My dad got me the Rocky game and played the hell out of it for months. That's what made my 87' worth while.

One thing about the Master System that is interesting is that it was legendary for those of us who grew up with the Genesis. Playing games like Phantasy Star 2 and Revenge of Shinobi, we would read in magazines that the original titles came out on the SMS, but since the console was dead and the games not in stores at that point, most of us only had screen shots and it would be years before we could experience these games for ourselves. I remember craving a SMS converter for my Genesis along with the original Phatasy Star, but this was not to be.

Great video brother man. You always brighten my day. I'm already looking forward to the next one. Thanks POJR!

It's always a great day when there's a new POJR video to watch. Thank you for uploading today! 😄

The reason that I didn't get a Sega Master system is because I didn't know about it.

This video assumes that the audience is from NA. I'm from EU and 1. Genesis here was named Megadrive (by the way, the original name) and 2: master system was not an obscure system, maybe not the most popular one, but fairly known.

I got my Sega Master System Christmas 1988. My sister got a NES. At the time I was a Shinobi fan and could almost beat the entire game with 1 quarter. It was a different game on the SMS but it was still a great game and system. Games like Phatasy Star, Zillion, Rastan, R-Type, and Space Harrier allowed you to play for days. My personal favorites were the games Spellcaster and Kenseiden. No on at all talks about these games and that is a shame because sequals to them would be pretty popular today I think. The only negative I ever had about the SMS was the sound. The music on the NES outclassed the SMS in every way. BlasterMaster, Ninja the Gaiden, and Castlevania played unbelievable music tracks at that time. Thanks for the look back on what really changed Sega up and brought about the true Genesis of gaming at home.

I think the biggest struggle for Sega at the time with the SMS versus the NES, was the game Library.

Native FM expansion would have been a good idea for it instead of being an optional expansion, then audio would have been exponentially better than the NES for sure

@thetechn1que518

9 ай бұрын

FM is great for music but not so much for sound effects. I still feel that multi-channel PCM on the NES and PC Engine is a lot more capable than the SMS even with FM sound. Maybe if it could use the PSG and FM simultaneously it would surpass the NES.

@narayanbandodker5482

9 ай бұрын

@@thetechn1que518PCM audio is fine, even if it is wavetable synth like PC engine. But idk i think if Master System kept the SN76489 but just included the expansion FM of YM2413 (like how genesis kept the psg but added ym2612) it would have worked out better

@thetechn1que518

9 ай бұрын

I saw another comment on here that said a fan hack of Sonic uses FM music with PSG sounds so I guess it is possible? I’ve never tried that rom. I don’t think any of the licensed games support this but it’s cool if that can be done.

@narayanbandodker5482

9 ай бұрын

@@thetechn1que518 I think I've seen that game played by @redhotsonic on real hardware, titled "Sonic 1 FM"

Cool video as usual...u only forgot about the pal and brazilian markets where the SMS was a success and outsold the NES by a quite wide margin eheh

@maroon9273

9 ай бұрын

Pal region kept the system alive and market it better than na and jp

@iwanttocomplain

9 ай бұрын

@@maroon9273 Mastertronic was the UK company responsible for the sms. Then Virgin bought them soon after.

@vebxenon

9 ай бұрын

And most of the catalogue was released in Europe only.

My next door neighbor had an SMS in 1990 when I had a NES. Ys made a big impression on me. We skipped over the 16-bit consoles (I had become a PC gamer), but picked up the N64.

I think a large part of the Master System's failure was actually the packaging and the look of the console itself. I loved the way it looked, but to be honest the first time I saw it I wasn't even sure it was a game console. it looks crazy and has a weird schematic diagram on the front. if it confused a video game fanatic like me, I know a lot of people didn't buy it because they couldn't tell what it was. The other problem is their cartridge boxes looked terrible. They all looked the same, just a white grid and the game name, and some weak looking art. There was no excitement or creativity in their packaging. it really hurt them, as most NES cartridge boxes looked super exciting by comparison. Sega realized their mistake and totally fixed all those problems when they made the Genesis. Everything about the Genesis/Megadrive was attention grabbing and exciting looking.

Hey, few pointers: First, on 4:52, a bit confused about the resolution info (you said the SMS has 256 x 192 while on screen it says 190). And second, on 7:49, did you forgot to mute the stock footage at the background? 😅 Nonetheless, I binge-watched your recent content and I do hope you get 10.000 subscribers this year. Best of luck to you.

Hey Pojr, I just wanted to say that I really like your videos! You are doing a great job. Keep it up.

Here in Australia, we had a lot of Sega Master System - I have so much nostalgia for its games, and its particular style of graphics and sound. And yet, I can attest to being jealous of the technically older NES having the "cool" games and the general street cred. In fact, this phenomena had so much effect that we never really saw the full potential of the SMS hardware - SMS games tended to have cheap budgets because of the small audience. So they never made full use of the hardware capabilities. Looking at Aladdin on the SMS you can get a taste of what could've been possible.

You should have showcased "Phantasy Star." It was a JRPG that pushed limits of the Mark III/Master System.

Such a missed opportunity on the Master System. But, Sega of America was kind of in a bad state back then, so it probably shouldn't be a big surprise. I remember having a lot of fun with After Burner, Space Harrier, Hang-On, Phantasy Star, Fantasy Zone, Miracle Warriors, and a few others. It certainly had good games, just not enough of them. That 3D setup it had was pretty sweet, though.

@kekeke8988

9 ай бұрын

Well, tbh, the master system lived on even in the US, since the Game Gear is basically the same thing with almost entirely the same games.

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

@@kekeke8988 Not only that most Game Gear games also got port to Sega Master System in other regions too. This include the Mortal Kombat games, Street of Rage games, and a few of the later Sonic games.

Do not forget that Wonder Boy was ported first on a Sega console (SG-1000). The Master System version essentially came closer to the original arcade version. Adventure Island had the benefit of looking at this game and was able to rethink and improve certain aspects. You'll see this a lot with different games on various consoles. For example Double Dragon on the NES lacked 2 player co op. The Master System version which was released after, kept the 2 player co op. Battletoads on the Genesis is basically an upgraded version of the NES original, on the SNES Battletoads they rethought a lot of the game. While Nintendo did rope in the 3rd parties, Sega still managed to provided a similar experience to a lot of those games on the Master System.

I´ve also heard that the Master System was a flop in the US. But it was But it was more successful in Europe and Australia than the NES. Also til today the Master System is the king in Brazil and I believe it´s still produced there. So this would make it the world's longest-lived console.

I think you could have compared SMS Outrun to NES Rad Racer, which was sort of an Outrun derivative and both were released basically at the same time.

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

I believe Squaresoft at the time didn't know what sells so they just make any game in any genre and hope one clicks. They made Rad Racer not knowing it was an almost direct clone of OutRun. This didn't anger Sega but it does give Sega an urge to answer back with a game of their own. When Final Fantasy became popular, Sega released Phantasy Star as a direct clone to compete against it.

In Canadians schools growing up it was always neck and neck battle between NES and Master System fans. I was on team NES but I secretly loved the Master System more. Especially when it came to light gun games. Duck Hunt on NES was good. But Safari Hunt on Master System was 10x better.

I could have had the NES than the SMS. The whole gaming console in my family started off when my parents asked me and my sister what did we want back in 1986 for the holidays, she said sega and I said Nintendo. It was one console for the both of us, because my parents wouldn't buy two seperate consoles. We were a "one console per family" so in a compromised decision, and that the fact my sister was older than me and was more dominant over this, I changed my NES vote to the SMS and take on my sister's side of the console wars, so my parents went along and brought us the Sega Master System, and I was satisfied...however the most majority of my friends had the NES and it didn't occur to me as a kid that occured to me now is that I couldn't share and trade games on the SMS to my NES friends. They all played Super Mario Bros/Zelda and what I got was Alex Kidd, Fantasy Zone and Hang-On/Safari Hunt.

I really enjoyed this video. I love learning all about older consoles especially ones that didn't sell very well.

Master System was basically 1986 tech whereas the NES was 1983 tech. SMB1 was about as far as the hardware was meant to go. Memory mapper chips, larger ROM chips coming down in price, and genius programmers focusing efforts on the large installed base were what pushed NES games from 1988 and beyond to do things the console wasn't meant to do. The cartridges utilizing custom chips really came in clutch, and the SNES had this in mind from the get-go.

@jsr734

9 ай бұрын

The Master System also uses Mapper chips but they called them "Paging Chips".

Completely missed the fact that the SMS cartridges also came in 128, 256, and 512 kb sizes as well from their own mappers.

@michaeljordan6008

9 ай бұрын

Make your own video, dork.

@jsr734

9 ай бұрын

"PAGING CHIPS", please, "Mapper" sounds too much Nintendy. 😆

Hey you've been popping up in my feed. Like your videos and I subbed.

I don't know if this is the best example of the principle that better hardware doesn't make a better console, because the SMS was a pretty good console... it just didn't sell well in North America. It did pretty well in Europe and South America, I believe.

What you do as a company is create your own development studios so that you have great games coming out for the system. If there are no 3 parties then you have to create your own division within the company which would act like a 3rd party developer. You have to have the games, the hardware is not enough. You have to have the killer apps that sell the console. Usually you have a few games that are so good and compelling that people have to play them and thus have to by the system.

The Master system is also hard to develop for. The sprites cannot flip,character facing left and right need more spaces on the ROM. Also the Master System have more choppy scrolling.

growing up in the states during the mid 80s I knew one kid with a master system, his father was an early adopter of all things tech. I remember banks of betamax machines dubbing in the front room of his house and even being introduced to laserdisc and the different micro-computers. We never looked at the master system as an inferior product.

11:02 Woah, I didn't know the existence of of the Master System II!!

I think I may still have my Master System laying around gathering dust.

one thing that is always omitted when talking about the SMS was that horrid control pad.. It was impossible to walk in a straight line for any amount of distance with that damn thing. That was my biggest problem with it. Some of the games were really good.

@waynetemplar2183

9 ай бұрын

Agreed. And for this reason I used a 3rd party Megadrive controller on my SMS which had a NES style D-pad

@forcaportugal2012

9 ай бұрын

I don't remember that, but excepting for the original which came with the console, the other controllers I had were Mega Drive's which were compatible and cooler.

The Tonka bit was due to major retailers were still skittish over the great crash even in 86 without Tonka being one of the largest toy makers backing Sega stores like Walmart (and other department stores) would not have gave Sega the time of day. In fact when Sega ditched Tonka a lot of the major retailers that were not specialty Toy & Video Game stores instantly put all Sega Master System products into clearance at absolute rock bottom prices. I had a SMS as well as a NES when they went into clearance mode I built up my game library quite a bit in fact my Walmart that was nearby had their games from five dollars to as low as one dollar. I went from having 3 games to over 40. Anyway when they released the Master System 2 it was only release to specialty stores like Toys R Us, Babbage's, etc. In fact I tried to get Golden Axe Warrior & Ghouls & Ghost from Sear via catalog, but they already stopped selling SMS stuff during their release.

So neat to hear the transatlantic accent at 1:11 with relatively high quality sound compared to commercials and even some films made in the 1940's. Transatlantic + video games = complete bliss! As someone who's played a good deal of both in the 2000's, they both have their standout titles. While I love the Mega Man hexology on NES, Phantasy Star was no slouch!

Ahoy mate! The master system was popular in europe and outsold the nes there and stay alived for a few years after its discontinuation in north amercia and the console also with the sega genesis still stays in brazil.

@fazares

9 ай бұрын

Where it outsold the nes by a huge margin as well

Sega were still publishing games for the Master System in PAL regions up to 1995, last PAL region game released was The Smurfs 2 in 1996.

I had the SMS and NES I kind I told myself as kid the SMS was better... it wasn't I will go back today and play a lot of NES games but not really the SMS games because if I wan to play Outrun or Hang-on etc... I will just play those on Genesis. Congrats on hitting 10k!

While at heart, what I am and will always be is a Commodore kid, I did love my Sega Master System. After the SMS, the next console I owned was the PSX, because I really preferred computers to consoles.

@bwc1976

8 ай бұрын

Similar for me, C64 to Master System to PC to Mac and PSX. The last console I ever got was the PS2, and around that time I switched from Mac back to PC again as well. Also have a Raspberry Pi full of emulators for older consoles.

The Master System actually has a display mode that increases the resolution to 256×240, but it worked only in the PAL models. One of the downsides not mentioned in the video is that the Master System had inferior sound capabilities to the NES, and unlike the Famicom, it didn't support sound expansions inside cartridges, only the Japanese model did through a sound expansion. There also was a Japan-exclusive model, which had the FM synth already built-in. A not mentioned advantage is that the Master System has a more powerful and faster cpu, it has a Z80 clocked around 3,5 mhz, while the NES has a 6502 clocked around 1,75 mhz. From what I've heard, the Master System is also easier to develop for than the NES. Despite being a failure in the NTSC countries, it was a big hit in PAL territories, it has outsold the NES, and received many exclusive games specifically for the European and Brazilian markets, not released anywhere else. And while the Master System was abandoned and forgotten by Sega, just like the SG-1000, the Game Gear is sorta like its new incarnation, it has the exact same hardware, just able to display even more colors than the Mega Drive, but has a lower resolution for its exclusive games, but it's fully backwards compatible and if you mod it to have a tv video output connection, the Master System games are displayed at their original resolution. Another improvement it has is the support for audio expansions inside cartridges. The Game Gear was eventually more successful, with much better third party support. (but still had no chance against the juggernaut that was the Game Boy)

Grew up with the master system 2. All my friends had one here in Australia

It was the exact same way over at Atari with the Atari 7800. It could handle about 100 on screen sprites without flicker.

No need for what-ifs: someone is porting freaking Wolfenstein 3D to the Master System!

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

That game is everywhere now, yes it's nice it's coming to an ancient system but this is 2023, modern tech for games on old hardware is nothing new anymore.

from what I understand, SEGA didnt really want 3rd party developers... they wanted to sell their own arcade ports and saw them as competition. I have no source, it was in a video I watched not too long ago about the Master System/SG1000

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

Yeap also the reason why not many third party companies are jumping on Sega's bandwagon was cause those were also Sega's arcade competitors. Capcom, Konami, Namco, Sunsoft, Tecmo, Taito, SNK, etc., they were also competing against Sega in the arcade space so they had no reason to support their competitor in the home console space. It wasn't until the Genesis that Sega finally manage to convince them otherwise.

I am not surprised the SMS2 got a cold welcome because it only had the RF output and the video/sound quality compared to the NES composite outputs was absolute horrendous, also no pause button on the controller for playing games like Alex Kid that uses it, really short cables to the controller etc. Little did people know that these consoles still have the RGB and composite circuits built in and it was possible to rebuild the missing components to get it back which I did to my console. I first Had the NES and then my dad got a Mastersystem2, I was not happy with most music being simple together with the smaller picture height and the really bad RF picture. I always thought the Nintendo was better because the games were fun, the music good and decent picture for the time. But after I modified my Sega I actually got blown away by how good the picture and sound can actually be on these if you do it right. sure the height is still smaller and many games still klinky klonk music is bad. But I really enjoy the console now and the games that are good is actually surpassing the NES in many ways (when compared to original features of the consoles) The Mastersystem was sadly underrated because bad choices were made and the reputation was damaged before people could understand how capable it was before it was too late.

Didnt you used to do Geico commerials?

I am not sure if I understand color palletes, but Sega's games were so colorful. What comparasion you get when you put Alex Kidd next to Super Mario?

Until today, Master system stills very popular in few countries. In Brazil, Tectoy and Sega have the longest partnership ever! Also in Brazil, we own the most expensive and rare Master System games, like Street Fighter II, approved by Capcom itself.

@djredshow

9 ай бұрын

I've found some of those roms and they are pretty cool.

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

Brazil never did left the 90s. In my home country, a lot of my folks still playing the Famicom despite we had Switch and PS5 at our side of the ocean.

@djredshow

9 ай бұрын

@VOAN I'm in the us and I still play the old games more than the new ones.

Have you covered Evercade?

When you count all the games that were released in other regions, the SMS compared favorably to the NES in retrospect in terms of software. The SMS actually got games later than the NES in some regions. All the way to 1996. Unfortunately those late games were only available to most of us in retrospect, in the form of emulation. Compare Gunstar Heroes on the Master System to Contra, I would say it's equal if not better. Or what about Sonic 2 to Super Mario Bros 2? I believe there were more Sonic games on the SMS than there were Mario games on the NES. Also I didn't even see a Master System until 1996 when I saw it at my uncles house. I had no idea what it was, I had a SNES at home, and I had played a NES and Genesis, but the SMS was foreign to me.

No mention of the sound chips? Maybe I missed it.

@pojr

9 ай бұрын

Looking back, I wish I talked more about this, especially the FM audio.

You make it seem like the SG-1000 was what became the Sega Master System. The SMS is the Mark III with the SG-1000 with a new body. The cart games on SMS were the Mark III games and the card games on SMS were SG-1000 games. You basically got two consoles in one.

Actually, there were a number of other third parties developing and releasing games for the Master System, though it required some navigation through various legal terms within the exclusivity contracts. By licensing to other companies and labels, developers and publishers could not only release their games on the NES, but on other platforms as well. While this practice did pick up on the Genesis through the use of various shell companies, developers such as Capcom, Taito, Epyx, Atari and Irem would license their games to either Sega, or others such as U.S. Gold, for release on the Master System in the North American region. While this allowed the console to have third-party games, Nintendo's relationship with various retailers would be a bigger hurdle. As the company grew bigger, their practices were emboldened as threats of blacklisting and cutting off supply kept many from carrying anything that wasn't licensed by the Big N. While this was mostly due to unlicensed third-party titles, many retailers didn't want to run the risk, which often left the consoles only being carried by specialty stores, to mail-in catalogs. While various anti-trust lawsuits and more powerful hardware like the Genesis/Mega Drive and the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 would begin to weaken Nintendo's grip on the market, they effectively ruled the North American region during the 8-bit days. ... unless you lived in Brazil, SEGA and Tec Toy had that on lockdown well into the '90s. Did you know that they actually had both Street Fighter II' and the Mortal Kombat trilogy on the Master System?

The SMS's major flaw was usually the software, the programming was almost always bad. Hit detection was shit, and they always had the buttons reversed from what they should be. Lot's of n00b mistakes. Compare the feel of Double Dragon vs. the NES. The NES version has a good feel to the combat, weight to the kicks and punches. The SMS feels like there's not really any collision occuring when you're beating the shit out of enemies. You're just draining an invisible variable until it's falldown time. Most of the games were like this. Smash TV was a joke on the SMS

The Dina console, aka Telegames Personal Arcade, can run ColecoVision and SG-1000 games. So, in a very roundabout way, the SG-1000 did reach America (but its games didn't).

The SMS was pretty cool but had an uphill battle against Nintendo in the states and Japan with their stranglehold on 3rd party support. Unless you live in Brazil lol

@fazares

9 ай бұрын

and europe

@jsr734

9 ай бұрын

No, 3rd partys were free to release games on other computers/consoles, Square actually released Final Fantasy on the MSX Computers as also did Konami with Castlevania, and Gradius and some other games so all this exclusivity thing seems to be a myth, been perpetuated by some angry fanboys.

@Assimandeli

2 ай бұрын

@@fazares I always hear this Europe thing. However, in the northern Europe pretty much nobody owned a Sega console. It was more than 90% nintendos and then playstations later on.

I know one thing about SMS Wonder Boy. It has a good few levels more than Adventure Island and the original arcade edition, plus it tweaks the arcade version and Adventure Island's biggest foible. The on-foot traction. It's way more lenient on SMS

@angelriverasantana7755

9 ай бұрын

The greatest showing of limit pushing on SMS was Phantasy Star. Being under the hands of Yuji Naka, he coaxed some serious power outta the SMS, with the 3D dungeons being one major example

Another great video by pojr 😁 *does not apply in Brazil 😅

Would there possibly be an essay like this about the current video game ecosystem?

Mommy said it's my turn to get pinned on the comment section.

@alexsweeney2443

9 ай бұрын

Well that worked.

@afriend9428

9 ай бұрын

*OUCH!*

I'm brazilian, and Master System was massive, a lot more than NES here, and include, made success after it's generation with a lot "impossibles" ports like Street of Rage, etc.. just when Super Nintendo arrives, the things became better to Nintendo with agressive marketing and the classic Sonic vs Mario happened. Before this, we had pirate NES consoles, we had 2 options, a pirate NES, more cheap or the official Master System, and even with the pirates, Master System was accepted and become more popular for some time.

That afterburner rotation effect looks nice to you??

@ajsingh4545

7 ай бұрын

Yeah that one caught me off guard 😂

Well, if someone wanted to watch an incomplete video of the master system in 2023, there you have it. This video omitted a lot of key information of the console, and how it actually thrived in europe and brazil.

04:50 256*192 gives square pixela at a 4:3 aspect ratio, so is a better resolution than the Famicom's 256*240 with its squashed rectangular pixels.

I grew up with the master system 2, in Europe the master system was so big we got exclusive games like ninja gaiden, I was blew away with a game having “cutscenes”

From my understanding the master system did fairly well in Europe?

@maroon9273

9 ай бұрын

Yes and it beat Nintendo over there.

@styloroc2000

9 ай бұрын

And Brazil

@DanielMonteiroNit

9 ай бұрын

Also Australia?

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

It was very successful in Europe, Australia, Brazil, and my uncle's house. Every time I visit him, he always had the SMS hook-up and we get to play some Hang-On or Golden Axe.

Another good video. I love the master system, it's fate is so sad to me.

@juststatedtheobvious9633

9 ай бұрын

Learn about how it dominated the UK before giving him any credit for this lazy effort.

I still have the Sega Master I received for Christmas 1986. Now my kids play it, they love playing Rocky Lol

NGL, to add in my additional opinion, I didn’t like how the box arts are with its grid paper background. Not only they don’t feel right with some games, but some like Action Fighter can be confusing into knowing what gameplay to expect. Had to look up some games to see what their gameplay is like in order to feel interested into adding it to my wishlist of retro games. But that aside, the Master System was an underrated console that deserved a bit more love. Hell, it even had a better version of Sonic the Hedgehog versus the Game Gear.

I'm surprised you didn't talk about the Master System's European Market, which btw, it was pretty successful there, and Europe got most of the good games that Japan and US never got, especially Power Strike II, that game is a limit pusher. Many Game Gear games have superior Master System counterparts released only in Europe

@valrond

9 ай бұрын

Typical Americans, they think they are the world. The thing is, the NES barely existed outside of the USA and Japan. We had the 8 bit micros and the first console with some success in Europe and Brazil was the SMS.

@djredshow

9 ай бұрын

​@valrond we ain't all typical as you so bluntly put it. Some of us can read and stuff. Yes I want a cheeseburger and ours are better.

@djredshow

9 ай бұрын

Yeah a lot of those games are fun and that's the only copies I can get. It was very limited in the us.

@pferreira1983

9 ай бұрын

@@valrond It's such a weird video considering how he presents everything. 😆

@DannyP-dm1pw

9 ай бұрын

@@valrond I'm American and I don't feel that way at all and neither do a lot of us. You just see the same stupid bullshit we see force fed media here and stupid Americans that worship sports and celebrities like they are gods. That's maintream. The blue collar working men and women of America don't think this way. I sure as well don't. I don't hate my country but I dislike outsiders always thinking we all think this way. I read magazines and knew of this stuff with Nintendo and stuff in the 90's as a teenager just learning to read as we didn't have cable tv in my house nor did we have internet. Not every American is spoiled and was rich. Heck...I didn't even have a Nintendo NES until 1992 and by then everyone I knew in school had a Genesis and a few more nerdier kids had Super Nintendo. My hard working parents got me a Super Nintendo. I wanted Genesis but Street FIghter 2 sold me and I still have a small handful of SNES games to this day from childhood. Being someone who served in military and traveled the world. I've met some snobby snubbish people from all parts of it and I also met and have long distand friendships to this day with people living elsewhere. Perhaps you need to check your own ego thinking as bad as the Americans you dislike think so much.

In Brazil, Sega MasterSystem was a huge success, beating Nintendo by far. At that time, nobody knew about NES, but everyone - even who had never played a video game - knew the MasterSystem.

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

Kinda sad too when they only know Master System, it's like living in the Galápagos Islands not knowing there's North and South America between them, missing out on classics they never had a chance to play such as F-Zero GX.

@Montegasppa

9 ай бұрын

@VOAN Kinda that indeed. Please don’t forget Central America tho. 😁

My dad choosed the Master System over the nes for me...i was 6 y/o...it came with a couple games built in and we played alex kid in miracle world, wonder boy, thunder blade and a lot more...was a blast i LOVED this console...which was replaced by the Super Nintendo later on.

@4:29 - The AV cable pictured isn't for the NES. This kind of thing indicates a lack of basic hardware knowledge. Love the channel anyway. I hope you reach your goal.

@VOAN

9 ай бұрын

I forgot that the original NES support standard AV instead of the proprietary one that Super NES, N64, and GameCube had.

My favorite game on the SMS was Wonder Boy 3, Dragons Trap

Fleets not forget Nintendo strong armed retailers to not sell SMS or else they’d pull support from their stores