The unit was only every released in Japan and pretty much flopped.

The SEGA Master System or Mark III in the East was Sega’ first real attempt to make it in the console world. The Master System was more powerful than the Nintendo NES which was the direct competitor at the time.

Again the Master System was not overly successful. Nintendo at the time had over 85% of the console market and locked all of their developers into agreements forbidding them to develop for other systems. The system did manage to achieve decent sales in Europe.

The Mega Drive or Genesis years are really what made Sega. The first major console war resulted in Sega eventually gaining a 55% market share. The exclusive contracts from Nintendo were declared illegal ( although Sony gets by quite nicely ) so the system got plenty of third party support.

In Japan, however, the Mega Drive was still sluggish. Nintendo still held strong with the NES because of the RPGs that were available. The constant delays of the Super Nintendo and the arrival of Sonic moved things a little in Sega’s favour.

The Mega CD was a CD ROM add-on for the Mega Drive to provide larger games and some enhancements to the graphics, this being sprite scaling and rotation mostly. What it did not do was increase the amount of onscreen colours so although graphics moved nicer and faster they didn't look that much better. A new sound chip was added for PCM wave forms. The original style unit sat below the Mega Drive and featured a front loading drawer with a front panel.

The Game Gear was basically a portable Master System designed to compete with the Game Boy. Though the system was much more powerful being colour rather than a black matrix it did not achieve mass popularity.

The Game Gear was able to run all of the Master System catalogue of games and had a TV Tuner accessory turning it into a portable colour TV.

The Master System 2 was a smaller remodelled Master System. This unit removed the card game port, the AV connector, expansion port and the reset button. The built-in game was Alex Kidd in Miracle World to then be replaced by Sonic the Hedgehog.

JVC manufactured a Sega system combining a Mega Drive and a Mega CD more geared towards Kareoke. The system was only ever released in Japan and being pretty pricey it never caught on.

Mega Drive and Mega CD are remodelled for cost saving purposes and get the number 2 at the end of their name.

The Mega Drive 2 has the new style AV port, no serial port and no headphone port. The Mega CD 2 is a slide attaching model with a lift open lid. Both units are fully compatible with their older versions.

This piece of hardware could have popularised the Mega-CD if it were released at a decent price. Basically it is a Mega Drive and Mega CD squeezed into the size of a slightly enlarged portable CD player. The unit itself actually does double as a portable CD player with some batteries. Games could only be played with power from an AC adapter.

The system was bundled with 8 games, Sega’s Arcade Classics, Sol Feace, Cobra Command and Tomcat Alley. The high price tag approx. £350 upon release stopped the system from becoming popular. When the 16-Bit market died you were able to pick one of these stylish units up for less than £150 sometimes cheaper. A collectable for the Sega fan.

Simply put. Disaster. The ill fated 32X may have meant something if it was earlier and the good games kept coming. It was basically an extension of the SVP plan which made Virtua Racing on the Mega Drive. It was a 32-Bit upgrade for the Mega Drive to keep the system alive during the onset of the 32-Bit era.

It was a mushroom like shape which slotted in the top of your Mega Drive making it look slightly stupid.

Some of Sega’s top arcade games at the time made their way to the system, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing Deluxe and Star Wars Arcade. Again very little third party support, lack of software and the imminent arrival of full 32-Bit consoles made the system die and disappear extremely quickly.

The SEGA Saturn is a true hard-core gaming system. The Saturn is a fantastic console never living up to its potential. It is a beast of a machine with it’s downside being difficult to program for because of the power it has. Using multiple 32-Bit processors third party developers opted for Sony’s console (and I suppose all those threats from Sony didn't have any influence) meaning that the Saturn lost the battle of the 32-Bitters shortly after it started.

The Saturn was able to replicate all of SEGA mega arcade hits at the time, Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally, Daytona USA, Virtua Cop 2 to name but a few as well as having some of the best ever home games.

Only a few developers utilised the true power of the Saturn. In the right hands it should wipe the floor with Playstation, games like Dead or Alive and Grandia are worth a look to see the Playstation superseded by supposedly inferior hardware.

The last games for the system were released in 2000. One of these was an update to a classic, Final Fight Revenge. Don't see that on any of Sony's systems do you?

An innovation from Sega of America which did not really take off. This time a completely portable Genesis ( Mega Drive ) about the size of a VHS tape with a back lit LCD screen. The system was so powerful that it manages to eat through a set of 6 batteries in under 2 hours.Although a hand held it had the majority of the ports of the console; AV out for connection to a TV and an extra port for another joy pad for 2 player games. The Nomad even ran the SVP powered Virtua Racing with no problems. Virtually 32-Bit power on a hand held!

The Mega Drive / Genesis was remodelled yet again by a company called Majesco Sales who have purchased the rights to deal in Sega’s old consoles. A much smaller version of the console with the Z80 processor stripped from it’s internals sold for $40 and a number of the systems top selling games were re-released sparking a small mini revival of the 16-Bit system.

Sega’s final games console. By now the territory had changed since the Saturn days and Sony had achieved a large market share by creating “the casual gamer” and was managing to slap Nintendo around a little.

Dreamcast is the next level of interactive entertainment. Providing console gamers with the worlds FIRST Online gaming experience which was thought to be the next big thing in games.

With 128-Bit power, Internet access, four game ports, revolutionary graphics it was sure to be winner. Sonic would return in full 3D glory for the launch date along with arcade perfect conversions of SEGA Rally 2 and Virtua Fighter 3tb.

The Dreamcast launch broke the records in all territories.

Sega, despite the gradual loss of third party developers to Playstation 2 continue to create maximum quality Dreamcast games. Arcade ports like House of the Head 2, Soul Calibur and the most original games ever seem like Jet Set Radio, Samba De Amigo and Sega Bass Fishing see the Dreamcast performing slowly. The Sony marketing machine is slowly killing Dreamcast. The sad truth being people chose the PS2 over the Dreamcast without ever seeing a single game.

During this time a small program arrives that will infuriate Sony and make sure that they see the Dreamcast and the people who created it, killed off once and for all, Bleemcast! Based upon the Playstation emulator for PCs, the Dreamcast is able to play Playstation games at higher resolutions than the Playstation with graphical enhancements which would eventually turn out to be better than the backwards compatibility than the Playstation 2 all at full speed with sound.

Sega announce that Dreamcast production will cease during march this year due to the financial drain on the company. Dreamcast is to be continued to be supported by software releases from Sega and a few remaining third party developers, however, Sega’s new goal is to become a multi platform third party developer.